


What Have We Become?

by singersdd



Category: Life (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-03-05 02:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13378677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singersdd/pseuds/singersdd
Summary: What happens to Dani Reese and Charlie Crews after One? This covers a few months of the beginning of their relationship.





	1. What Have We Become?

**Author's Note:**

> After I discovered LIFE on Netflix, I had to write my own continuation, seeing as we won't get a season 3. It's almost as bad as the cheat we got from Firefly.
> 
> Oh, and I took a note from Jane Austen: she didn't name the shire of soldiers that "invaded" Meryton, so I didn't feel the need to name the lieutenant from IAB.

Dani Reese had a look of wonder, amazement, love, joy, gladness, on her face as she looked through the windshield of the car Agent Bodner was driving down the dusty road through Charlie's orange grove. It was seeing Charlie standing in the middle of that road, miraculously still alive, that had put that look of wonder on her face. The car had just barely come to a stop before she jumped out of it and was in his arms.  
“Are you okay?” Charlie asked as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.  
“Am I okay?” Dani asked incredulously as she looked up at him. “How are you alive? How did you get out of that SUV?”  
“Something I learned in prison.”  
“But what about his goons?”  
"Apparently he didn't inspire much loyalty.” He tilted her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “Now, tell me: Are you okay?”  
Dani knew exactly what he was really asking her. “I'm okay. He slapped me across the face a couple of times, but that's all.” They wrapped their arms tighter around each other, enjoying a peaceful interlude before the repercussions of this interminable day began to fall down around them. Charlie rested his cheek on top of Dani's hair with his eyes closed, and Dani's ear was pressed to his chest in just the right spot to hear his heart as the adrenaline rush began to wear off and he began to calm. Neither of them were aware of exactly how long they stood there. They enjoyed the sounds of each other's heartbeats and breathing, just glad they existed in the same place and time. They were being very Zen about the moment when the sound of sirens – many sirens – began to intrude on their peace. They stepped apart from each other as the sirens got closer. Whatever it was they'd just become was too new to stand any questioning.  
Captain Tidwell, as their commanding officer, was one of the first to arrive, of course. What he was besides Dani's commanding officer was now an open question, one that could not be answered at this moment, either.  
“Da- Reese! Are you okay??” Tidwell shouted as he jumped out of the car driven by Seever.  
“Yeah. I'm okay,” she answered as Tidwell enveloped her in a bear hug. Dani's eyes never left Charlie's – a small detail that only Bodner caught, and that was probably just as well. It reminded Bodner of the day he'd realized he was in love with his partner. It appeared that the same realization had hit Charlie Crews today. It had worked for Bodner and his wife 20 years before, and in Bodner's estimation, it would work for Crews and Reese, too.  
Hot on the heels of Captain Tidwell came an ambulance. The EMTs took Dani to the back of the ambulance and checked her over. She appeared to be dehydrated, but was otherwise all right.  
“Why don't you let them take you in, get you completely checked out?” Tidwell asked her.  
“No, I'm all right. I really just need a shower, clean clothes, and sleep,” Dani said.  
“Yeah, but -” Tidwell started again.  
Dani got a closed-off look on her face, raised her eyes to look around for her partner and called, “Crews!”  
Charlie appeared at her side almost immediately. “What do you need?”  
“Take me home. Please,” she said.  
"Okay,” he said.  
“IAD is gonna wanna talk to Crews,” Tidwell mentioned.  
“They can talk to my partner tomorrow,” Dani asserted.  
“You're gonna have to give a statement,” he tried again.  
“My partner will give a statement tomorrow,” Charlie declared. That was really the end of the discussion. Crews and Reese, Reese and Crews – or as they appeared at the moment, as one entity: Crews&Reese – were calling the shots. Somehow, over their time apart, and this infinite day of trying to get back together, they had coalesced into a cohesive unit. They defended each other and suddenly spoke for each other. Tidwell had a sense of unease while watching this happen. It felt like Dani Reese was drifting away from him and into the arms of her partner.  
Crews left Reese just long enough to confer with Bodner. “Keys?” he asked. Bodner silently handed him keys to a car. “Thanks.”  
Bodner observed all the EMTs and Tidwell fussing over Reese, took in the look on her face, and said, “She's at the end of her rope.”  
“Yeah. If I don't get her out of here soon, she's gonna hang somebody with it.” Charlie jogged back to the ambulance and said, “Reese?”  
Dani stood up, just a little shaky, but Charlie caught her elbow, and they walked to the car Bodner had driven into the orange grove. Dani was exhausted enough that she let Crews drive. Crews, who by all rights ought to be dead, was alive and driving a car, and Dani felt very safe with him behind the wheel. They drove away toward Dani's apartment.  
When they were out of sight of the orange grove and Dani had relaxed a little, Charlie said, “How about food?”  
Dani opened her eyes – she didn't realize she'd closed them – and said, “Food would be good.” They went through a drive-thru for burgers and milkshakes. Since they were both very hungry, Charlie parked the car and they ate in the parking lot. It was food, which was about all it had to be at this point.  
By the time they got to Dani's apartment, she was out cold. Charlie wasn't sure if she had keys in her pocket, but he didn't think so, and she didn't have her purse, so Charlie did the only thing there was to do: He hoped the neighbors wouldn't notice as he picked the lock on her door.  
Dani was so solidly asleep that she didn't stir while he opened the car door, carried her in the apartment, and laid her on the bed. He gently removed her shoes and jacket, but thought he'd leave the rest of her clothes on. He covered her with a throw blanket from the living room couch, took care of a phone call he needed to make, then kicked off his own shoes, removed his tie and jacket, then lay down on the bed, curled around her spoon fashion, and succumbed to sleep himself.

The next day started entirely too early with someone banging on Dani's door. She and Charlie both sat up, confused as to where they were, what time it was, and why someone was pounding on the door at the crack of dawn.  
“How did I get here?” Dani asked as she looked around at her bedroom and took in Charlie lying beside her.  
“I, uh, carried you in last night,” Charlie admitted, hoping she wasn't going to hit him for it.  
Dani looked down at herself, noticed that she was not naked, nor was she on her clean(ish) sheets in filthy clothes, and said, “Oh.” The banging on the door continued, so Dani got up and went to see who was banging on her door at the awful hour of 6:00 a.m.  
When she looked through the peephole, she seriously thought about climbing out a window and running away. She really didn't want to have the conversation she was going to have to have with Kevin Tidwell. Really didn't want to. Particularly not at six in the morning, while Charlie was in her apartment (although neither of them was in anyway undressed), and she hadn't had even a sip of coffee.  
“Oh, no. It's too early in the morning for this,” she muttered.  
Charlie had followed her into the living room. “Who is it?” he asked through a yawn.  
“Tidwell.”  
“Do you wanna have this conversation by yourself or with back-up?”  
Dani sighed, “I don't wanna have this conversation at all, but I guess I might as well get it over with.”  
They hadn't discussed any change in their relationship. There really hadn't been time since they'd left the orange grove yesterday. Somehow, they both knew that they were not the same partners they'd been, and Charlie knew that Dani was going to break up with Tidwell. They hadn't discussed it; he just knew. Charlie also realized he needed to not be in the room while that happened.  
Charlie melted back into the bedroom while Dani opened the door. “Come in,” she said, while Tidwell took in the fact that she still had on yesterday's clothes.  
“Have you had a shower yet?” he asked, completely taken off guard and disarmed by appearances not being what he expected.  
“No,” she answered. “I fell asleep before I could do anything but eat.”  
“Oh,” he said, still nonplussed that what he had expected was not what was. “Ummm,” he started, “Where's Crews?”  
“Do you see him?” Dani sounded just a little annoyed. “He's my partner; we're not joined at the hip.” Yet, her brain added. Why in the world would I think that now?? her brain answered.  
“Well,” Tidwell started, “After he drove off with you yesterday, I thought. . .”  
“Yeah, well, maybe you thought wrong,” Dani shot back. She paused and took a deep breath, then said, “Let me have a shower and coffee and I'll be at the station in an hour or two.”  
“Yeah. That'd be good,” Tidwell said, and exited the apartment, looking a little humbled by not having seen what he hadn't wanted to, but expected to, in Dani's apartment.  
When Tidwell was gone, Charlie stepped out of the bedroom and said, “Well, you avoided that conversation for a little longer.”  
Dani just glared at him and said, “I'm gonna shower. A smart partner will have coffee waiting when I get out.” She went into the bedroom and grabbed clean clothes before locking herself in the bathroom for a while to scrub off a week's worth of grime.  
Charlie, being a smart partner, and having learned in their partnership not to mess with Dani before she'd had her caffeine fix, hunted through her apartment for coffee makings. He found the necessary pot and ground coffee, and the elixir of functioning was brewing before he heard the shower shut off. It wasn't much longer before Dani emerged from the bathroom with clean clothes on and her hair wrapped in a towel. Charlie was waiting for her, coffee in hand, strong and black, just the way she liked it.  
“Oh, thank you,” she said. Food was not necessary to start her day. Coffee was.  
“You're welcome,” Charlie answered. “I need to go home and get clean clothes. Would you like me to come back and we could carpool to the station?”  
“Do you have any idea where my car is?”  
Charlie looked befuddled and said, “I don't know. I suppose it's still at the FBI building?”  
“You drove us here in a department car, right?”  
“Yeah. I think it was signed out to Seever.”  
Dani stopped and thought for a minute, “So what if I go with you to your house, then. . . .”  
Charlie could see the way she was thinking, but she didn't know that his latest car had been the victim of his circumstances, so he interrupted her, “I'm carless.”  
“Again?”  
“The Grand National ended up in Bodner's garage. . . through the garage door.” Charlie sounded like he'd found the bright side when he added, “I saved Bodner's life.”  
“Do I really want to know?” Dani asked.  
“Probably not,” Charlie answered. “I was not attached to that car,” he muttered.  
“Much,” Dani added. She continued, “So, we go to your house, then to the FBI building to get my car -”  
“-Do you have extra keys? I didn't see your purse anywhere yesterday.”  
“Oh, crap. Keys.” Realization dawned on her as she started hunting for her extra keys in the junk drawer, and her eyes snapped to Charlie. “How did you get in here??”  
Charlie merely tried to look innocent, to which Dani said, “I don't wanna know.” As she finished her coffee, she picked up her dirty jeans, dug in the pockets, and said, “Here,” to Charlie as she handed him his badge and handcuffs.  
“Thanks,” Charlie said, surprised at how delighted he was to see them. “I wasn't sure I'd see these again.”  
“Me and Bodner picked 'em up yesterday after you left in that SUV.” Dani sounded almost embarrassed by how important it had been to her to get his badge, especially, out of the dirt at the side of the road. She had been terrified at that moment that it was going to be all she had left of her partner.

By the time they finally made it to the station, both in clean clothes and in one piece, it was after 9:30, much later than IAD or Tidwell wanted them to show up. Their conversation as they'd driven around to collect Dani's car and clean clothes had mostly been Dani telling Charlie that he really needed his own lawyer to appear with him at this meeting with IAD.  
“You're right,” he'd said, and sort of let the subject drop.  
When they reached the station, Charlie's new lawyer was awaiting him. Dani decided not to be jealous of the willowy-looking red head. She looked like she knew what she was doing, although Dani did ask Charlie, “How did you make a lawyer happen?”  
“Oh, I called Constance's old firm last night while you were asleep,” he replied. Dani merely shook her head at the persuasive power of money. They were taken to separate interview rooms, which Charlie expected, but angered Dani.  
“Why in the world is Crews being interrogated by IAD??” she fussed.  
Tidwell tried to calm her down, but only succeeded in making her madder. “He is my partner, and there shouldn't be a reason for us to answer questions separately.”  
“So you know how Nevikov ended up dead, do you?” Tidwell asked.  
“You don't think that's a civic improvement?” she shot back.  
“Yeah, I do, but IAD sees it as a possible murder.”  
“How could Crews have murdered Nevikov in an SUV that had four goons with guns in it?”  
Tidwell didn't have an answer for that, but he did say, “I'll bring that up with IAD. Now, can we please go start your statement?”  
He had mollified her enough that she said, “Yeah, okay,” and they proceeded into an interview room with a legal pad of paper and pen.

Charlie's interrogation by IAD didn't go as IAD wanted. They started with the biggest question immediately.  
“Detective Crews, did you kill Roman Nevikov?”  
Charlie peeled a tangerine and offered part to his lawyer as he said, “I was in an SUV that contained four men who worked for Nevikov, all of them armed to the teeth, and you think I killed him?” and handed his lawyer, one Melissa Harding, a segment of tangerine.  
The gleam in the lawyer's eye suggested that she was at least as good as Constance, and she seemed to catch on to Crews' zen without missing a beat. She was good.  
“How else do you explain your escape?” Lt. – asked.  
“Roman Nevikov made many poor choices that led to his death. His choices did not depend on me,” Crews said.  
“What makes you think Det. Crews killed him, and not one of his hired guns who had been pushed too far, or had his family threatened one too many times?” asked Ms. Harding.  
The lieutenant looked frustrated now. “He was holding your partner as a hostage. What did he want in return for her release?”  
Crews decided that he could give them a little honesty and said, “Me. He wanted me.”  
“Why?” the IAD lieutenant wanted to know.  
“I can't see into the wants and desires of others,” Crews replied.  
“His body was found in a burned out SUV,” Lt. – said, “As soon as the autopsy is performed, we'll know exactly how he died, and then we may have more questions for you, Det. Crews.”  
“So, he came in here this morning for, what? Fun?” Ms. Harding asked.  
“Why did you not come into the station last night to answer questions?” Lt. – asked, trying to regain control of the room.  
“My partner's needs at that moment outweighed IAD's want for answers,” Crews said.  
“Oh, and what needs did your partner have that couldn't have waited?”  
“Anything my partner needs will always outweigh any other consideration,” he said. Maybe he'd revealed a little too much with that answer, but there it was.  
Ms. Harding touched his arm to signal that he might want to stop talking now. She then she asked the lieutenant, “Don't you have a partner? Don't your partner's needs stand before anyone or anything else?” Lt. – had no choice but to equivocate a little agreement. “Then why do you think that Det. Crews wouldn't act in the same way?”  
Lt. – didn't have an answer for that.

In a separate room, Dani was not having any more fun than Charlie was. Tidwell wanted Reese to write her statement while he watched.  
“Shouldn't you be in the interview with Crews? You are his commanding officer, right? Aren't you supposed to be in interviews like this?” she asked.  
“Yeah, but Crews can take care of himself. He's probably spouting Zen at them, and there's a lawyer with him,” was Tidwell's lame answer.  
“I can take care of myself, too. All I'm doing is writing down what happened. It's not helping for you to hover,” she said.  
“Yeah, but, I don't want to take my eyes off you, now that they're on you again.” He took Dani's hand and held it gently, and Dani felt sure that he was about to ask her to be his fourth wife. “Dani, come on. Say you'll stay where I can see you forever.”  
Dani thought Oh, no. I can't do this now. She said, “I really need to get this written while I still have it fresh in my mind, and this isn't the place for that sort of conversation.”  
“How about tonight at my place?” Dani grimaced just a little, so Tidwell tried, “Or your place; I'm flexible with either.”  
Dani thought about the few things she knew she'd left at Tidwell's and considered whether she would mind if she never got them back. Then she considered whether she wanted to try to make him leave her apartment after she broke up with him, or whether it would be better for her to leave his place. . . “I'll come over to your place around seven,” she finally said. “Now, will you please go check on my partner?”

Tidwell walked into the interview room just in time to see Crews and Ms. Harding stand up. The lawyer said, “This was a waste of Det. Crews' time. Next time you want to call him in, make sure you have some solid evidence first.”  
Tidwell met Crews at the door and said, “Guess you didn't need me.”  
“Not so much,” said Crews. “Where's Reese?”  
“Finishing her statement next door,” Tidwell said.  
Crews nodded, and immediately knocked on the door and opened it, saying, “Reese, it's me,” as he did.  
Reese looked up at her partner, nodded, and kept writing. Crews sat down beside her, leaned back in the chair, and never said a word. She put the pen down when the page was full, then rubbed her hand and asked, “Why can't witness statements be typed? Why do they have to be handwritten?”  
Crews said, “I don't know. Maybe your handwriting can reveal if you're lying?” He picked up her hand and rubbed the soreness out of it.  
Reese sighed and said, “Thanks. That feels better.” She paused, looked around to make sure the door was closed, then considered that the camera was probably on, so she didn't tell Crews about her conversation with Tidwell. Instead, she looked at what she'd written and handed the legal pad to Crews. “I think I'm done.”  
Crews looked at her for permission before he picked up the pad and flipped the pages back to the beginning of Reese's statement. It had taken Dani a total of six pages of a yellow legal pad – front and back – to write out everything that had happened since she'd left LAPD for her so-called assignment with the FBI. It didn't take Crews as long to read the statement as it had taken her to write it, still, it took a while to read about her time at the FBI, where she'd been asked questions about nothing but Charlie Crews and her father and the Bank of Los Angeles shoot-out and Rachel Seybolt, and Micky Rayborn, and the longer Charlie read, the angrier he got. By the time he was done reading her time with Nevikov, he decided that he'd killed that Russian thug and his FBI mole too quickly.  
He finally said, “Do me a favor?” She raised her eyebrows in question. “Copy this before you give it to Tidwell?” She nodded.  
His reasons for asking her to copy her statement she was not going to discuss at the station. She wasn't going to discuss at the station that she was going to Tidwell's for the last time this evening, either.  
“I'm done,” she said, after she'd read through her statement one more time.  
“So am I,” Charlie said.  
“Good. Let's get outta here, get something to eat, then go to your car dealership. Maybe they'll have something a little more indestructible than the cars you've had so far.” She paused for a moment and said, “A tank. That's what you need: A Sherman tank.”  
Charlie had to chuckle a little at the truth of Dani's estimation. He was definitely hard on cars.  
“Copy room to copy your statement?” he asked, and Dani nodded. Dani wouldn't completely relax until they were out of the building. It didn't feel like the safe place it used to any more.  
Before they could leave the floor, Tidwell cornered the two of them coming from the copy room. He looked at Dani and said, “You're on admin leave until you've had a full physical and psych eval.”  
Dani rolled her eyes a little and said, “I'm not surprised.”  
Tidwell looked at Crews then and said, “You're on suspension pending results of the investigation by IAD and autopsy on Roman Nevikov.”  
Dani was furious. “All he did was save my life, but instead of a medal or a commendation, what does Crews get for his trouble? Suspended.” She shoved the six pages of yellow legal paper at him and said, “Here's my statement. You can reach me on my cell.” She stormed off toward the elevators. Crews followed along behind, covering her back.  
Tidwell called after them, “Crews!” Crews turned and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Watch out for her?” Tidwell asked.  
Crews nodded and said, “Always. She's my partner.” He caught up with her in the elevator.  
As soon as the elevator doors slid closed, Dani handed him the copied pages of her statement. He folded the pages and put them in his inside jacket pocket for the moment.

When they were safely back in Dani's car and out of the parking garage, she asked, “Okay, why did you want a copy of my statement?”  
“Copies are good things to have,” Charlie said. “It would be even better if it was a notarized copy, but a copy is good. If there's a copy, no one can change what you wrote down, because you have a copy of the original, which we'll put someplace really safe. I haven't thought where that will be yet.” He was starting to sound more like his whimsical Zen self.  
“And that's why you mentioned it in the interview room, because it would probably be on camera.”  
Charlie nodded. “So now IAD, or whoever it is, will know not to change your statement, because we have a copy of it as you wrote it.”

After a stop for lunch, then a stop at his car dealership (there weren't any tanks available, but there was a black Hummer that looked a bit sturdier than any of the vehicles Charlie had managed to destroy), they found themselves back at Charlie's house late in the afternoon.  
As they walked in the front door, Dani said, “I told Tidwell I'd come over to his place around seven this evening.”  
“Okay,” Charlie said. He felt his stomach flip in disquiet as he walked into the kitchen.  
“I probably won't be there long,” she continued as she followed Charlie and watched him pick a peach out of the fruit bowl on the counter.  
“Wanna go out for dinner later?” he asked, as his stomach flipped back to its normal position.  
“That would give me a reason not to be there long,” she mused to herself. “I gotta make a clean break with him, Charlie,” she said, as she turned to address him directly.  
Charlie nodded, but didn't miss that she'd called him by his first name. “He's not a bad guy, and he has done good things for you,” Charlie had to admit around a bite of peach.  
Now Dani nodded. “I don't know what I'm going to say, but I know I have to say something to him. . . thank him. . . I don't know.”  
Charlie pulled her into his arms, tilted her chin up and whispered, “You could tell him that as great a guy as he is, and as grateful as you are for all that he did to get you back yesterday, your partner needs you with him. . .”  
Dani wrapped her hands around Charlie's waist and teased back, “Yeah, but how true is that? Does my partner really need me with him?”  
Charlie leaned even closer to Dani and whispered, “You have no idea how much,” just before he leaned in all the way and gently brushed his lips against hers.  
It was a slow sweet kiss, a kiss filled with promise, a kiss that got deeper as Charlie tilted his head and Dani ran her hands up his back, trying to pull him closer to her.  
Dani's hands moved to the back of his neck, so she could run her fingers through his hair. Charlie liked this change in circumstances. The height difference was starting to make his back and neck ache (not that he'd ever admit it to Dani), but this new arrangement meant that he could easily wrap his arms around her waist and pick her up. She gasped a little, but decided not to be mad, because now she could wrap her legs around Charlie's waist.  
The kisses were getting deeper and more frantic, their clothes were starting to loosen, and Charlie was headed for the stairs with Dani's legs wrapped around his waist, when her cell phone rang. “Ignore it, ignore it,” Charlie whispered fervently.  
“What if it's Tidwell?”  
Charlie let out a groan of frustration and put Dani down.  
Dani pulled her cell phone out and looked. “It is Tidwell,” she said.  
She answered the phone and said, “Yeah, Reese.”  
“Hey, Dani,” Tidwell said, “What if we go out for a nice romantic dinner?”  
Dani closed her eyes and wondered how she was going to get out of this, and was very glad Charlie couldn't hear what Tidwell was saying. She kept her face toward the wall, so Charlie couldn't distract her from what Tidwell was saying. “Umm. I don't think I'm up for all that much tonight. I'll still be over, but I need more sleep in my own bed. Alone.” She didn't dare look at Charlie while she talked to Tidwell. The conversation didn't last much longer. When Dani hung up the phone, she knocked her head against the wall and groaned.

 

Her visit to Tidwell's apartment was not long. Neither of them were happy when it was over. Kevin could tell when he opened the door that something had changed, but he wanted her to say the words. “So,” he said when she had come in, “Do you want a drink?”  
Dani gave him a raised eyebrow look.  
“Sorry,” he said, “Force of habit.”  
Dani hadn't come very far into his apartment, and she was acting sort of like a scared rabbit in the presence of a coyote – and she knew better. Kevin Tidwell had never brought her any harm. Tact wasn't quite his strength, but he was a nice person and a good cop. She took a deep breath, and said, “Kevin, we need to get some things out in the open.”  
Kevin turned around and looked at her. “What kinds of things?” he asked, as he sat down on the couch.  
“This morning when you came to my apartment, Crews was there, in the bedroom,” she said as she sat down across the room from Kevin.  
“See?! I knew it!” He stood back up and started pacing.  
Dani stopped him from a real rant by interrupting him, “No, you didn't. Nothing happened between us last night -”  
“-- Yeah, but it could have!”  
“No, it couldn't have because Charlie isn't that sort of guy.”  
"Yeah, that's what they all say!”  
Dani drew a deep breath and sighed. “I didn't come over here to argue with you.” This made Kevin stop pacing and look at Dani.  
Kevin looked a little more hopeful and asked, “What did you come here for, then?”  
“I came over here to say that as nice and kind a person as you are, as great a guy as you are, this is as far as it goes between you and me.”  
“What's that supposed to be? A way to let me down easy?”  
Dani rolled her eyes. “There's never a way to let a person down easy. You are genuinely a great guy. I don't want to break your heart. But it would be cruel to let you think that we're going to get any more serious than we are right now, because we aren't.”  
“Oh, so, what? You gonna go bump uglies with your partner now?” he said in a bitter tone.  
Dani decided not to get mad. She knew that he was hurt, and she realized that Charlie's Zen was rubbing off on her way more than she thought. “This doesn't have anything to do with Crews. You and I weren't going to get any more serious than we are, whether Charlie's in the picture or not.”  
“So he is in the picture?”  
“I didn't say that. I said that this is as serious as I can get about you. And I'm sorry.”  
“Sorry for what?”  
“Sorry that I have to hurt you.”  
Kevin used the pleading tone that normally worked so well on women, “No, you don't. You can stay here with me tonight and we can make it work out.”  
Dani had to use all her strength, because that pleading tone was pretty effective, but she managed, “No, I need to go. The faster and cleaner the break between us is, the faster you can heal and move on to someone who can appreciate you even more than I can.” She went into the bedroom and bathroom and grabbed the few things that she had left there and was quickly out the door, with a last peck on the cheek for him. And because he was such an honestly nice person, and had helped her to a place where she was ready for the commitment that she was pretty sure Charlie Crews was going to take, she shed a few tears before she could drive away from Kevin's place for the last time.

 

When Dani walked in the door of her apartment, she was greeted by the scent of Chinese take-out and fresh fruit. Since Crews had “made” dinner, of course it included fresh fruit. Dani had already come to the conclusion that she didn't mind the fresh fruit thing so much. Of all the oddities a person could have, an addiction to fruit was at least healthy.  
Charlie took one look at her face, didn't say a word, pulled her into his arms and held on for a few minutes. The old Dani would have threatened him with bodily harm, or just carried out some bodily harm. Dani now, though, was glad to be with someone who really understood how she felt. This Dani welcomed his touch, instead of shying away from it. This Dani had broken things off with Tidwell and it had hurt her, and that hurt Charlie. He even felt for Tidwell right now: The poor guy didn't have Dani in his arms anymore.  
After a few minutes, Dani picked her head up from where it rested against Charlie's chest and said, “I am glad that's over.”  
Charlie sort of felt like he didn't have a right to be glad that Dani broke up with another guy, so he didn't say anything; he just nodded his head.  
Dani drew a deep breath and blew it out, almost as if she was trying to blow away the sadness of having to hurt Kevin Tidwell, and then asked, “What did you get to eat?”  
Charlie's whimsical side came out as he pointed at the assorted containers on the table and said, “You have a choice of General Tso's chicken or beef and broccoli; egg drop soup or egg rolls; and for dessert, cheesecake rangoons.”  
“Cheesecake rangoons? I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing.”  
“Oh, once you've tried them, you will become a fan.”  
The next few minutes were spent eating and talking about everything and nothing. Then Dani said, “I still feel like I need to yell at you for that stunt you pulled yesterday, getting into that SUV.”  
“Yeah,” he replied, “but I got you out of it.”  
Dani shot him a glare.  
Charlie realized he was going to have to talk some more, “Dani, you have to know that I have more experience dealing with psychos, and I know more dirty tricks than you do.”  
She glared at him for a minute more, then reached across the table to take hold of his hand and finally said, “Will you please not scare me like that again?”  
He gave her half a smile, turned his hand in hers to thread their fingers together and said, “Only if you won't scare me like that again.”  
She could only give him a half smile back and pull him closer by his hand until their lips met.  
This time when Dani's cell phone rang and Charlie whispered, “Ignore it,” she did.


	2. More Than Partners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that they're definitely more than partners, what's next for Charlie Crews and Dani Reese?

They awoke the next morning in Dani's bed again. Charlie felt her stir in his arms. He'd been awake for a while, but the opportunity to watch Dani with a peaceful expression on her face didn't come often, so he was going to enjoy it while it lasted.  


Dani rolled toward him in his arms and flung her leg over his hip, then kissed her way up his chest, seeing as it was right in front of her mouth, and that scar from his latest gunshot wound needed to be kissed. She pushed Charlie over onto his back and pushed her hair out of her face. “Morning,” she said, as she leaned down to kiss him. Charlie wrapped his arms around her and rolled Dani onto her back.  


“Hey!” she protested.  


“Turn about's fair play,” he said with a grin, pulling an old saying his mother used to use out of his memory.  


A few minutes later, Charlie said, “I could get used to starting the day like this.”  


“Mmhmm, me, too,” Dani said between kisses she peppered on his face. The kisses got deeper and Charlie slipped down Dani's willing body. Now that dawn was breaking, there was light to see the love bites he'd left all down her torso the night before. He kissed each one, as if his kiss could heal them as well as his kiss had left them. He had kissed his way around her breasts, down to her navel, and headed even further south, much to Dani's vocal approval. The next half hour was spent in finding out the spots that each of them had that would excite the most. Charlie discovered that Dani's neck and earlobes were very sensitive; Dani discovered that Charlie was ticklish around his ribs.  


When they were both satisfied, they looked at the clock and it said 9:34. Dani said, “No wonder I'm hungry.” Charlie's stomach growled in response.  


“Any food in the house?” Charlie asked.  


“Only the fruit you brought in last night,” Dani had to admit.  


“Well, that's a good place to start,” Charlie laughed.  


After they were finally up and dressed, they tried to think of how to spend the day. They didn't have to worry about going to work, since they were both on leave of one kind or another, so their day was open to explore. Dani said, “I need a run. It's been too long since I could go for a run.”  


“Would you like a new place to run?” Charlie asked, “We could go to my place, and you'd have the whole canyon to explore. Then you could run up to my house and refresh in the pool. . . If you wanted to.”  


Dani thought a minute, then said, “That sounds like a good idea. Let me throw some clothes in a bag.”  


Dani drove to Charlie's house separately and arrived just a couple of minutes after he did. As soon as she could get her muscles stretched, she was out on the road, headed down the canyon. When she looked up from the bottom of the canyon, she decided that she might have been a little crazy to take this on. The road was steep. Getting back up to Charlie's house was going to take some effort.  


It took twice as long to jog up the canyon as it had to jog down, and by the time she got back to Charlie's, he was standing in the front yard, pacing like a tiger caught in a cage.  


“There you are!” he exclaimed when she finally made it back to the house.  


“Yeah, that canyon is steep!” she said.  


“I was starting to wo-” he almost said “worry”, but stopped himself and said, “worrrrk out. I was starting to work out, myself.” If he admitted “worry” to Reese, he might just take his last breath.  


“Uh, huh,” she said, suspiciously.  


“You wanna go swimming?” he asked.  


“Uh, yeah. After climbing out of that canyon, I could definitely go for a swim.”  


Charlie joined her in the pool, of course. The morning sun had warmed the water, making their swim relaxing. Dani stretched her muscles out again in the water, while Charlie sat on the pool's steps and watched. She swam within his reach and he caught her by a hand and pulled her in tight against himself. Dani made a token protest of, “Hey! I wasn't done yet!”  


Charlie stopped her next words, whatever they were going to be, by the simple expedient of kissing her. Then he said, “I can think of other ways to get a work out,” with a lewd grin. 

The results from the autopsy on Roman Nevikov weren't going to be available for at least two weeks, there was so little left of the body. Until the results of the autopsy were in, Charlie was on suspension. Dani was placed on medical leave until she had a clean bill of health, both physically and mentally. The physical part was easy. There wasn't really anything wrong with her that a good night's sleep, a good meal, and a quart of water wouldn't fix. Mentally, though, was going to take a while.  


Over the weeks that Dani's mind healed and became accustomed to the idea that her life was worth saving, Charlie and Dani fell into a routine: Dani ran the roads in the canyon while Charlie meditated. After their workouts were over, they relaxed in the pool. Charlie insisted on taking Dani to dinner at the best restaurants in Los Angeles. He sometimes then persuaded her to take in a movie or a concert while they were down in the LA valley. By the time they drove home, they were ready for bed, in every way possible. Dani was shocked by how quickly it felt more and more natural to refer to Charlie's house as, “home”. More of her clothes seemed to migrate to Charlie's house every day, and it seemed like she was holding onto her apartment for no good reason. She still couldn't quite let go of having her own place. Everything was going very well with Charlie – too well – and that was about the time that Dani always messed things up. She hoped that Charlie was brave enough to not let her mess things up with him.  


“Messing things up,” was a phrase she used quite often in her required psych sessions. “I'm afraid I'm going to mess things up with Charlie,” she admitted in her session one Thursday.  


“How would you mess things up?” the counselor, Maggie Jones, asked.  


“Drinking again, using drugs again, running away from him,” Dani admitted with tears in her eyes. “Charlie was the one who really came after me when Roman Nevikov had me duct taped to a chair. I knew he would. I couldn't believe how much I missed him the whole time I was at the FBI. I wanted to talk to him. And suddenly, I couldn't even talk to him on the phone, and I was only partly scared because I knew that he would find me.” Dani knew that she was probably rambling a bit, but it was cathartic to talk all these feelings out.  


“Do you have nightmares about Nevikov?” Maggie asked.  


“Not while I'm asleep with Charlie,” she said, then looked frustrated and said, “But I don't want to be all right only while I'm asleep with Charlie. I don't want to rely on him so much.”  


“Do you think he minds?”  


“No. In fact, I know he doesn't mind at all.”  


“So, maybe it's all right to rely on him for a while?”  


“Maybe. But I'm half afraid I'll get as addicted to Charlie as I ever was to drugs or alcohol. And it terrifies me to risk loving Charlie. What if something happens to him? What if I'm not the person he thinks I am? What if I can't love him the way he loves me?”  


Maggie sat back in her chair a little and said, “I can see how you're concerned.”  


Dani wiped tears from under her eyes and asked, “How do you not get addicted to a person who loves you?”  


“Many people would say that it's quite all right to be addicted to someone who loves you.”  


“Yeah, but many people aren't me.”

“I think it's all right to lean on him a bit right now,” Maggie said. “When you go back on duty is time enough to make it through a day or night without him. Would I have your permission to discuss how you're doing with him? Sometimes the way a person looks through a loved one's eyes gives me new direction in a patient's sessions.”

Dani looked a little suspicious as Maggie talked, but then said, “Yeah, that's okay with me.”

Maggie added, “You can be present, or not, it's up to you.”  
After Dani's session was over, Maggie beckoned to Charlie and asked him into her office. Dani thought, She didn't wait for the grass to grow under my permission for her to talk to Charlie.  
Maggie said, “I just want to touch bases with Charlie for a minute.”  
Dani decided that maybe she did want to hear what Charlie said about her.  
Charlie then looked confused, but walked into Maggie's office anyway. Maggie started the conversation by asking, “How are you, Charlie? I hear things from Dani, but not quite the same thing as talking with you, myself.”  
“I'm all right,” Charlie said. “I'll be even better when I'm back on duty, but right now, I'm all right.”  
“Being a cop is important to you?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Even after you were wrongfully convicted and spent 12 years in prison?”  
“One of the things that kept me going in prison was the thought that I was still a cop, and that I was innocent.”  
“Have you had any counseling since your release?”  
“I did for the first few months, just to get the idea that I was really free into my head.”  
Maggie nodded, then asked, “How do you think Dani is doing? – I have her permission to talk to you about her. And she's sitting right beside you. Dani, if I ask a question you don't want Charlie to answer, say so.” Dani nodded her head, wondering what it was that Dr. Jones wanted to hear from Charlie.  
Charlie turned to look at Dani and didn't hesitate when he said, “All things considered, I'd say she's doing all right.”  
“Have you noticed her having nightmares?”  
“Some nights. But as soon as she realizes where she is, she recovers pretty quickly.”  
“Any signs of PTSD? Startling at unexpected noises? Hair trigger on her fight or flight response?”  
“To be expected right now, don't you think?” Charlie asserted himself and said, “At the moment, I'd say she's doing as well as anybody who'd been held hostage with a bag over her head, and duct taped to a chair could do. All she needs right now is a bit of time, and she'll be all right.”  
“She's afraid she'll mess things up with you.”  
Charlie looked Dani square in the eye and said, “She'll never mess things up with me.”  
“You seem pretty certain of yourself.”  
Charlie nodded and said, “I am. I love her.”  
“She's also afraid she's so addicted to you that she can no longer handle life by herself.” Charlie gave Maggie a scoffing look. “It's a valid concern for someone who obviously has a tendency toward addictions,” Maggie added.  
“Well, if she's addicted to me, I am certainly addicted to her, too. I suppose we can be addicted together.”  
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “You've given me a more complete picture of Dani.”  
“You're welcome,” Charlie said, ever courteous.

As Charlie drove them toward home (it was his day to drive) he said, “You know, I am addicted to you.” Dani spun her head to look at him. “I love your scent on the pillows. I love to hear your voice. I love your laugh. I love you, Dani Reese.”  
Dani considered her response and finally said, “I love you, Charlie Crews.”

 

After reports on Dani's sessions with Maggie Jones were received, it was decided by the Powers That Be that she could go on desk duty for a week, and then go back into the field, if all worked out during that week. Charlie also finally heard the results of the autopsy on Roman Nevikov. The fire that destroyed the SUV had been almost hot enough to cremate a body, so there wasn't much left to autopsy. There was no way to tell what had killed Roman Nevikov, and the men who had also been in that SUV weren't talking – in fact, they'd all disappeared. Since Charlie had been unarmed, and all the goons around them had been armed, there was no way that the death of Nevikov could be laid at Charlie's feet. 

They were both to report to the station on Monday morning, bright and early, as though they hadn't been on suspension and leave for the last few weeks. On Sunday, Dani awoke before Charlie did, and enjoyed the sight of Charlie asleep. “I can hear you thinking,” Charlie said.  
“I thought you were still sleeping!” Dani said in surprise.  
“I always wake when you do,” Charlie said, “Besides, it's our last day of leave. I don't want to waste any of it sleeping.”  
“Oh, really?” Dani asked, and moved closer to Charlie, within his arms, where she could kiss her way across his face, down his neck, and lovingly nip at his collar bone. She had just rolled him onto his back, and was starting to kiss her way down his chest, when their phones both rang.  
They broke apart from each other with a groan and Charlie said, “If that's Tidwell, I'm forgetting I'm Zen and using a dirty trick on him.”  
Dani checked her phone, “It's my mom,” she said as she answered. She was greeted by a torrent of Farsi that she could barely understand. “What Maman?? What??” Dani had to keep saying until the torrent settled down into something she could understand.  
It was Tidwell calling Charlie's phone: “Crews,” he answered tersely.  
“Yeah, Crews, wherever you are, find Dani,” Tidwell said reluctantly.  
“Okay. . . What's wrong, Captain?”  
“Her dad's body has just been found. She needs her partner.” Charlie heard Tidwell draw breath before he said, “She'll have to I.D. the body in the morgue. Don't let her do that alone, dude.”  
It amazed Charlie that Tidwell was a big enough person to call him to make sure Dani was all right. He said, “I got it.” Charlie drew breath himself and said, “Thank you, Captain.” He pulled Dani into his arms again. The torrent of Farsi continued for a few more minutes before Dani hung up the phone and turned to wrap her arms around Charlie's neck.  
“They found my dad's body,” she said, her voice sounding flat and stunned.  
“Honey, I'm sorry,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around her tighter.  
“I guess maybe that was one time Roman Nevikov told the truth,” she said.  
“Do you want to go to your mom's?” Charlie asked.  
Dani sighed a great sigh. “Yeah. . . No.” Dani felt tears welling up in her eyes. “What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react when my dad dies, the man I've never figured out. Was he mean, or was he just a bad cop? And I don't know which one I think is worse for him to be. He certainly wasn't the hero I thought he was when I was little.” Dani felt like she was on the edge of babbling, but she couldn't seem to stop the flow of words. “And the funeral! My dad's funeral is going to be over-the-top full of hyperbole about how great a cop he was, how he was so successful as a SWAT team leader, yadda, yadda, and I'll know that so little of that is really true.”  
“Maybe the important thing is that you and your mom know the truth?” Charlie posited, when it seemed that Dani's flood of words had calmed.  
“Yeah, maybe,” Dani said, “but shouldn't the truth be told?”  
“Will it do anyone any good if it's told?”  
Dani shrugged. “Maybe I just want other people to see him the way I do: not as perfect as he appeared.”  
“Honey, nobody's as perfect as they appear.”  
The realization that her dad had died broke over Dani again. “Charlie, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna listen to people repeat lies they've heard about how great my dad was, over and over?”  
“I'll be right beside you, if that's what you want.” That was just what Dani needed to hear – and not. She burst into loud tears and clung to Charlie as if he was a life line, keeping her from going under in a sea of grief and regret.  
Charlie was a little surprised by some of the verbal barrage that had come from Dani. No one who knew her well, not even Tidwell, would ever believe that Dani Reese, the tough female detective, a woman who defined, 'Though she be but little, she is fierce,' had let this amount of vulnerability appear.  
When the storm of grief had passed, Charlie gently asked, “Not to put any pressure on you, but what do you want to do next?”  
Dani chewed on her bottom lip for a minute, then said, “I don't want to, but first I need to go to the morgue and identify the body. Then I'm sure Mom will need me.”  
Charlie said, “Get some clothes together and I'll drive you.”  
Dani turned on her way to the closet and said, “You don't have to do this, you know. I'll be all right to drive myself.”  
Charlie nodded and said, “I know. But you're my partner. Partners don't go through having to identify the body of a parent alone.”  
Dani sighed deeply and said, “All right. Thanks,” as she headed toward the shower.  
When she emerged from the shower, she found that her mom had called quite a few times more. “I'll be there in less than an hour,” Dani told her mother when she called her. They had a conversation in Farsi, after which Dani turned to Charlie and said, “I told Mom I would go to the morgue and I D his body. She doesn't need to see whatever he looks like now.”  
“I'll drive you,” Charlie said again. Dani just nodded. Dani had been letting Charlie drive a lot since they'd both been rescued from Nevikov. The discovery of her dad's body had knocked a lot of strength out of her. She was secretly relieved to let him do the driving. A woman can only put on a brave face and not reveal weakness for so long. She'd never admit it, but she was actually tired of always being the driver. It was refreshing to let Charlie drive, particularly today. 

The drive to the morgue was mostly silent. Dani held herself closed off. All her old defenses were back up, and Charlie could tell that it was going to take some time to get them back down again. He had decided that the last weeks had been a gift from Karma or the fates or God or whoever was responsible for the order of the universe. They were more than partners now, and whatever they wanted to call, “more than partners,” it wasn't just built on mind blowing sex (although that was part of it); it was built on everything that had made their partnership as detectives work for two years. They trusted each other, and revealed their worst fears and deepest secrets. Charlie had learned to be patient in prison. He could be patient and wait for Dani to let those walls down again. It had only taken two years the first time; that was nothing to a guy who'd spent 12 years thinking he was going to see death inside cinder block walls and metal bars.  
Identifying the flesh that had contained Jack Reese didn't take long, for which Dani was grateful. It appeared that he'd been tortured before a bullet went through his skull. If it was true that he'd cried before Nevikov killed him, he'd had reason. There were cigarette burns and shallow cuts all over his body. The tattoos were his, in all the right places, although the face didn't look much like him. Dani looked at the shell that had once been her father, either a bad cop or mean, she still hadn't concluded, and said, “Yeah, that's my father, Jack Reese.”  
Charlie was waiting right outside the door and Dani walked right into his arms. She'd had to prove to her dad, if his spirit was still hanging around, that she was still as strong and tough as he'd made her by going into the room alone. Now that she'd proven to her father and herself that she was tough, she didn't need to be any longer.  
Charlie whispered, “Let it out, let it go,” to her as she tried to choke back sobs.  
She finally choked out, “Get me outta here.”  
“Okay,” he said, and guided her toward the exit and back to the black Hummer.  
Once they were back in the big black tank, she looked at Charlie and asked, “Is it awful that part of me is relieved?”  
“No.”  
“Good. Because part of me is relieved that he isn't coming back.”  
Charlie realized as they left the morgue parking lot that all the walls Dani had seemed to have around her on the way to the morgue had held her up and kept her together until she'd identified Jack Reese. Having done the last thing she could for her dad, she didn't have to be strong any more; her walls didn't have to keep her together any more.  
The drive to the Reese house was still mostly silent. Dani felt worn out. She was already worn out from grief, but knew that she would spend more time crying as soon as she was in her parents' house. She had surprised herself today. She'd allowed Charlie to have much more control than she normally would. She felt easily led because she just didn't have the strength to even express an opinion on much of anything. All the walls she'd carefully built around herself had crumbled in the cool blue gaze of her partner's eyes. Charlie could be strong enough for both of them today.  
When Dani entered her childhood home, she was immediately surrounded by aunts and cousins, all speaking Farsi as fast as their tongues would move. She had hold of Charlie's hand, because the only way she could survive the onslaught of emotion and relatives – and emotion from relatives – was by having Charlie close. This sort of reliance on another human being was new and scary for Dani Reese. She'd never, since childhood, felt that she could trust another person but her mom, and sometimes Mom was questionable. Somehow, she trusted Charlie Crews. It scared her to death, but made her feel free, too. But mostly it scared her to death.  
Then she found herself in her mother's arms, and the fact that she'd just had to identify her father's body overwhelmed her. Her father. The man she had never been able to figure out. The man who had helped to shape her, for good or ill. He was not coming back into their lives again, and she still hadn't figured out whether she was relieved or sad. She knew right now that her mother was hurting, and she was the only one who could share her mother's pain.  
Charlie convinced the assorted relatives that Dani and her mom needed a moment, just the two of them. He managed to get them all out of the kitchen and closed the door. Of course, this meant that he was alone in Dani's relatives' clutches.  


“So, you are Dani's partner at work?” asked one of the aunts. Charlie had no idea what this aunt's name was.  


“Yes, we're partners,” he replied.  


Another aunt – or maybe a cousin – said, “Dani is good at her job? Like her father?”  


Charlie saw that as an opening to say, “I think she might be even better.”  


That pleased the whole family. They had heard some of Jack's stories. Hearing Charlie say that Dani was an even better cop pleased the relatives immensely. If he wanted her family to like him, he'd just said one thing that would almost guarantee it.  


Dani and her mom emerged from the kitchen before Charlie had to answer any more probing questions. The whole family watched in astonishment as Dani walked right into Charlie's arms. There was talk among the relatives, all in Farsi. Charlie couldn't understand what they were saying, but he could read body language, and it said that they were all shocked that Dani would show reliance on another person this way. Charlie let them stare while he wrapped his arms around Dani's shoulders.  


As far as the family was concerned, it couldn't have been more obvious that they were together if he'd put a diamond ring on her left hand.  


Dani felt. . . well, she couldn't really describe how she felt. She felt safe in Charlie's arms. She was very conflicted over the confirmed death of her dad. She was still terrified she was going to mess things up with Charlie. But she had a feeling that maybe Charlie wouldn't let her mess things up. And that idea made her feel safe in his arms again. But the idea that she'd let all the relatives see her rely on Charlie scared her, too. Who was she anymore? Was she still a hard-ass detective? What had happened to her hard shell that kept everyone out, the shell that protected her in a string of one night stands? It appeared that her shell had been picked apart by Charlie Crews, her pain-in-the-neck, fruit-eating, Zen-quoting, understood-everything, trustworthy and trusting partner.  


The rest of the day wore on. More relatives came by; neighbors brought in food; the phone rang constantly; and everyone was interested in seeing Dani's mom, then Dani, in that order. It was almost 8:00 p.m. before the house was finally empty of everyone but Dani, her mom, and Charlie. Both of the women were glad to take off their, “company,” faces and just let the reality of the day sink in.  


As it got later and later, Charlie wasn't sure whether Dani wanted him to stay or go back to his own home. Neither was she. Part of her didn't want to sleep without the security of Charlie's arms, but sleeping with your new boyfriend/partner in your mom's house, while Mom's asleep in the next room, was just too weird. But Dani couldn't leave her mom alone tonight, either. So, she was going to have to sleep without him tonight.  


Charlie had come to the same conclusion. “Dani? Walk outside with me?” he asked at around 10:00. She nodded and followed him out the door. “Not the way I want to spend tonight, but I think I better go home alone,” he said, when they were under the lemon tree in the front yard.  


“Yeah, I know,” Dani answered. “Sleeping with my partner in my old bedroom is just too strange.”  


“I'll be over tomorrow,” he said. “Call me when you wake up and I'll bring you coffee and clean clothes.”  


“Okay,” she said. She then pulled him down by his shirt and kissed him long enough and deep enough that she wouldn't forget him, and he certainly wouldn't forget her.  


“Good night,” he said, and he walked out to the big black Hummer and drove home.  


On his way home, Charlie called Tidwell. It had to be done. They were supposed to be back on duty tomorrow, but that wasn't going to happen.  


So when Charlie heard his captain say, “Tidwell.”  


Charlie answered, “This is Crews. Obviously Reese won't be on duty tomorrow.”  


“Yeah, I sort of figured that. Have they made funeral arrangements yet?”  


“No. They plan to do that tomorrow.”  


“And what about you, Crews? Will you be on duty tomorrow?”  


Charlie drew a deep breath and said, “I think my partner needs my support while she buries her father more than the city needs me to solve crime.”  


“Are you ever going to come back?” Charlie wasn't sure whether Tidwell wanted him to come back or not.  


“That question is unanswerable right now.” Charlie stopped at a traffic light and looked all around before he turned right onto the road that wound through the canyon to his house.  


“What does that mean??” Tidwell sounded a little aggravated now.  


“I'll let you know as soon as I've figured it out myself.”


	3. Rest in Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Funerals. . . yuck. No fun to live through, not much more fun to write. 
> 
> I own nothing but my imaginings.

Rest In Peace

 

The next few days were filled with the sad busyness of preparing for a funeral. There were people to notify, clothes to find, pictures to put into a slide show, decisions that Dani or her mom had to make, and it all seemed endless. The first decision to make was whether the casket would be open or not. After the way Jack Reese's face had been abused, they decided the casket would be closed. There were endless decisions to make on mundane things. As it was a retired policeman's funeral, a lot of the ceremony would already be decided. But who would speak, and who would be pallbearers, and where was the grave, were decisions that still had to be made. Dani and her mom wore themselves out each day, and fell into bed each night exhausted by the decisions they had made. Dani couldn't leave her mom alone, so she continued to stay there, and somehow, the second (or was it the third?) night, Charlie was still there when Dani's mom, Nadia, finally had to fall into bed. She said, “You'll stay with my Dani tonight?” while she was looking at Charlie.  
Dani looked at her mother as if Nadia had just grown a second head. “What, Mom?” she asked.  
“You think I don't know, but I do. Charlie is good for you. You need him here.”  
“Uh, Mrs. Reese, that's a kind offer –“ Charlie started, but Nadia interrupted.  
“Nadia, please,” she said, “you'll be in the family for a very long time, I think, and I think Dani needs you tonight.” She turned and looked at Dani and said, “You have stayed here, so I am not alone, but I know that you are lonely for this Charlie.” Dani just stared at her mother. “Good night, my Dani,” she said as she kissed Dani's cheek and hugged her close.  
“Good night,” Charlie and Dani said together, as Nadia walked down the hall to a bed that seemed too big for her alone.  
“Okay, that was weird,” Dani said. “Did my mom just give my boyfriend permission to stay all night??”  
Charlie perked up at the word, “boyfriend,” but merely nodded and said, “That's what it sounded like. Are you complaining?”  
“No, it's just so. . .unexpected.”  
“So, are we going to waste the opportunity?”  
“Never. I'm just in shock.”  
Charlie hummed and said, “I'm going to kiss you now.”  
Dani's eyebrow went up as she said, “Are you? Let's see what you got, hotshot.”  
The next few minutes were spent curled up on the couch together, getting to know each other's bodies again. Charlie traced the lines of Dani's body through her clothes. Dani traced the long line of Charlie's jaw and neck with her lips. When she ran into his collar, she started unbuttoning his shirt.  
Charlie ran his hands down Dani's sides, then up under her shirt,and his hands headed for the hooks on her bra.  
Dani arched into Charlie's touch, but then said in a whisper, “Charlie, not here. Wait.”  
Charlie said, “Wait? Why?”  
“Let's go into my bedroom before the clothes hit the floor.”  
Charlie huffed a laugh, then stood and pulled Dani up. “Lead the way,” he said.  
They giggled their way down the hall, Charlie's hands on Dani's hips, and Charlie's lips on Dani's neck after he'd moved her hair out of the way. Their giggles were muffled by the sound of the bedroom door closing quietly.  
It might have seemed odd that Dani could giggle during the days between the discovery of her dad's body and the funeral, but she found she could. When her mother heard her and Charlie giggling, it made her heart light. She knew that Dani would be all right with this Charlie. Nadia had heard Jack say nothing positive about Charlie Crews, but Nadia had decided that Jack had been wrong. 

 

The next morning, Dani emerged from her old bedroom at about 9:00 a.m. She looked much more relaxed and happy than her mother had seen her in a long time. This Charlie was good for Dani.  
“The coffee is ready,” Nadia said. She had been up for a couple of hours, long enough to have a pot of coffee ready for Dani's caffeine need, and long enough to have muffins almost ready to come out of the oven.  
“Ooooooooooh, thank you, Mom!” Dani said, as she veered her way toward the coffee pot. The kitchen timer went off just as she had her big cup filled. Dani reached for potholders and pulled the muffin tins out of the oven.  
“Dani! I could have done that!” her mother protested.  
“Mom, I may not know how to make the muffins, but I think I can pull them out of the oven without ruining them.”  
Nadia had to laugh. As well as Nadia could do almost anything in the kitchen, one would expect that Dani would have had SOME idea of what to do in the kitchen, but Dani really didn't have the first clue. Dani could barely follow directions on a frozen pizza box. Muffins from scratch were not something Dani could even aspire to.  
The scent of muffins and coffee brought Charlie out of Dani's bedroom, in search of caffeine and sustenance. “Something smells wonderful!” he said as he entered the kitchen.  
“Dani just took the muffins out of the oven,” Nadia said with a smile.  
Charlie looked at Dani and said, “You didn't make these yourself, did you?”  
Dani said, “Of course not. Mom made them. I just pulled them out of the oven.”  
Nadia had to admit, for the sake of honesty, “No, I didn't make the batter; I just had to put them in the oven. The neighbor across the street, Judy Randall, made them.”  
Dani said, “I thought cranberry orange muffins weren't something you'd normally make.”  
Charlie, out of hunger, said, “Who cares who made them? Are they ready to eat??”  
Nadia and Dani laughed and got out juice, butter, and Nadia made scrambled eggs to go with them. It was the work of just a few more minutes before they sat at the kitchen table and ate. 

 

The doorbell rang not long after they were done eating. Dani went to the door and found Kevin Tidwell standing there with a big bouquet of flowers. Before she opened the door, she took a deep breath, steeled herself for the argument that might be about to happen, and opened the door.  
“How are you?” Tidwell asked, followed by, “These are for you and your mom,” as he handed the bouquet to her.  
“Thanks,” Dani said as she took the flowers. “We're as well as we could be, I guess.”  
“Can I come in?” he asked in a hopeful voice.  
Dani stopped and thought for a split second, then said, “Sure. Come in, have a seat.” As he came in the door and looked around the living room, Dani said, “I'm going to find a vase in the kitchen for these,” motioning with the flowers. As she walked toward the kitchen, she thought, Wonder if I can keep Charlie in the kitchen till he leaves. . . aw, who cares?Tidwell will find out eventually anyway.  
Nadia looked up as Dani came in with the flowers and asked, “Who was that, Dani?”  
“Uhh... our boss,” she said as she looked at Charlie, trying to communicate please stay in here and don't talk!! She should have known better.  
Charlie gave her a look that said I don't know why you'd want me to not greet our boss.  
Nadia, clueless as to the looks Dani and Charlie were giving each other said, “Oh, how nice!” and got up to go in the living room and meet Dani's boss.  
Charlie stayed in the kitchen with Dani while she found a vase, filled it with water, and put the bouquet in it. She set the vase on the kitchen table. It gave the kitchen a more cheerful look, being of neon colored daisies. Dani steeled herself again and went back to the living room, with Charlie close on her heels.  
Tidwell stood up as Dani and Charlie came in from the kitchen. “Oh. Crews. You're here early,” he said.  
Charlie just nodded. Nadia, however, said, “Charlie has been a great help this week. He's helped Dani and me make all the arrangements for the funeral tomorrow.”  
In Farsi, Dani told her mom, “Don't tell him Charlie was here all night.”  
In the same language, Nadia asked, “Why not?”  
“I'll explain later. Just don't.”  
Nadia shrugged her shoulders and said to Tidwell, “Would you like something to eat? We have muffins.”  
Tidwell said, “Oh, no, thank you. I just wanted to check in on one of my best detectives.” He was looking intently at Dani while he said it.  
Nadia said, “That's nice. I'm sure you make a good boss, coming to find out how Dani is doing.”  
Tidwell said, “Yeah, she looks all right to me.”  
Dani, hoping to salvage the situation, said, “Thanks for coming by and bringing the flowers.” She managed to get Tidwell out the door before he could wonder why Charlie was at Dani's mom's house so early in the day.  
After Tidwell had driven away in his car, Dani slumped down against the door and said, “Wow. That was close.”  
“What was close?” Nadia asked.  
“Charlie and I are partners at work. If we're partners outside work, they'll split us up at work.”  
“Neither of us want a different partner,” Charlie added. “We make a good team. If they force us to have different partners, we won't solve as many crimes.”  
“Oh,” Nadia said. “So, this boss, he was maybe coming to find out whether you're in love with your partner?”  
Charlie and Dani exchanged a look and said together, “Something like that.”

The funeral was the next day, and it went about as well as a funeral ever does. All the pomp and pageantry of a police officer's funeral were apparent. Many good things were said about Jack Reese, and some of them were even true. Charlie met Dani at the funeral home in his dress blues. As the daughter of the deceased, everyone expected that Dani would wear civvies. Nope. As the daughter of a cop, who was a cop, Dani was in her dress uniform, just like all the other cops.  
There were people there who knew of the animosity between Charlie and Jack Reese and were shocked that Charlie would appear at Reese's funeral. He answered any questions with, “He was my partner's father. I'm here because my partner asked me to be.” He said it a lot as he strolled through the funeral home to bring water to Nadia Reese, or to rescue Dani from the latest person who had to wax lyrical about how wonderful her father had been. Dani managed to greet such effusions by biting her tongue. By the time the funeral service was due to start, she was amazed she hadn't bit her tongue completely in half.  
People appear at funerals the family hasn't seen in years – decades, even. Most funerals are probably family reunions of some sort. Jack Reese's funeral certainly was. Micky Rayborn even made an appearance. He caught up with Charlie, despite Charlie's efforts to hide from the crooked cop. As tall as Charlie was, and with that red hair, it was hard for Charlie to hide.  
“How ya doin', kiddo?” Charlie heard behind him.  
“Don't call me kiddo.”  
“Come on, kid, don't you want to know what I know about Jack Reese's death?”  
“Nope. I'm content to let Jack Reese rest where he can't do any more harm.”  
“You're not even a little curious?” Rayborn sounded like he couldn't believe that Crews didn't want to know anything about Reese's death.  
“Not in the least.”  
“And you call yourself a detective,” Rayborn scoffed.  
Charlie turned to look at Rayborn and hissed, “The only mystery I want to solve is how to get you to quit calling me, 'kiddo'. I'm not your kid. I don't want to be the next king of your crime syndicate. I just want to be a good cop.” He stalked away from Rayborn and found his partner standing near her dad's coffin.  
Mickey Rayborn didn't even look a bit ashamed of himself. Actually, he looked like he was gloating because he'd gotten a rise out of Charlie Crews. Rayborn knew how dangerous an angry Charlie Crews could be, but he didn't seem to be able to stop himself from needling Crews, just to prove he could. Come to think of it, Rayborn was the recipient of an unusual reaction from Crews. Maybe it was the setting, but Rayborn had expected to end up with bruises, or at least shoved against the wall by Crews. Maybe Crews was getting soft.  
Dani was near her mom, beside the closed coffin that contained the empty shell of her dad, thanking people for coming over and over. She was moved to tears by a few people who came through the line, but most of the people who came through praised her dad to the skies, and Dani couldn't join in their tears. Her dad honestly had not been a very good person. It was confusing and conflicting, hearing stories and views of her dad that were so different from the truth she and her mom had lived.  
As a police officer and the daughter of the deceased, it was expected that Dani would say something during the funeral service. She had agonized over what to say about the man who had shaped her into the person she was, and had hurt her so much in the process. He had forbidden Dani part of her heritage when he'd forbidden Farsi while he was in the house. Sure, she'd become a cop because of him, but she'd like to think that she did a better job of it than he ever had. She'd been expressing her frustration over saying something about her dad to Charlie since it had been decided that Dani ought to speak. She saw the logic in it, but that didn't make it any easier.  
After brainstorming sessions with Charlie, she'd finally cobbled something together. Suddenly, the funeral service started, and before she knew it, it was time for her to speak. The only thing that kept her upright when she got to the lectern was the sight of Charlie and her mom.  
“My dad, Jack Reese, was known as a good cop. He saved lives as the leader of the best SWAT team the LAPD has ever had. He always loved my mom and he is the reason I am the person I am today. There will never be a day when I don't think about my dad. There will never be a day I don't miss the man who taught me to tie my shoes, ride a bike, and to always stand up for what I believe is right.”  
As soon as she was done with her few sentences, she sat down between Charlie and Nadia quickly. She leaned her head over onto her mother's shoulder and held Charlie's hand on the other side. Sitting between the only two people she could trust implicitly on the earth, she felt herself relax and she said her own silent good-bye to her dad.  
Dani's little speech was followed by a speech from Karen Davis. Karen felt no need to hold back on the praise for Jack Reese. Her speech was over twice as long as Dani's and almost every word of it praised Jack Reese to the skies. 

The internment service at the cemetery was the place all the LAPD pomp was on full display. The pallbearers were old friends of Reese's, including Mickey Rayborn, all in their dress uniforms. Eventually, it was over. Jack Reese was safely interred in the ground. He wasn't coming back. Until the shovelfuls of dirt started to descend on the coffin, there was a secret fear in Dani's heart that her dad was going to rise from the dead. Dani had been the one who identified him, so it was illogical, but the fear niggled at the back of her mind.  
As soon as the service was over and people started drifting back to their cars, Dani asked Charlie to come back to the house with her. There were many, many relatives descending on the house, and she wouldn't be able to tolerate the craziness without help. Charlie nodded in agreement, of course.  
After a few hours of meeting more and more of Dani's relatives, and knowing that some of those relatives were going to stay with her mom tonight, they were finally able to slip away in Charlie's big black Hummer. It was a relief to be away from all the people. It was a bigger relief to not have to pretend anything, and not have a company face on. She grabbed Charlie's hand while he was driving and said, “Thank you.”  
Charlie just said, “You're welcome.”  
“No, Charlie,” she said with emphasis, “Thank you. Thank you for helping the last few days. Thank you for being there every time I needed you.”  
Charlie said again, “You're welcome. I love you. You needed me, so I was there, and it was my pleasure.”

As they drove back to Charlie's house, Dani considered how she had changed of late. Before Charlie, she never would have let herself be as vulnerable as she had been since he'd rescued her from Nevikov. She felt safe with him. She felt safe enough to let her failings show; she didn't feel the need to put on a brave face with Charlie. Charlie knew she wasn't perfect, but he loved her anyway. That was a hard idea for Dani Reese to contemplate. Someone who loved her despite her faults. The idea almost made her brain explode.  
Charlie's phone rang as they approached his house. Since Charlie was driving through some intricate turns, he handed his phone to Dani and said, “Answer that, will ya?”  
Dani looked at the caller ID and said, “Rachel. It says Rachel.”  
“Okay, well, answer it and if she wants to come home, tell her it's safe now.”  
Dani gave Charlie a suspicious look, but answered the phone, “Charlie's phone.”  
“This isn't Uncle Charlie. Who are you and why do you have his phone.”  
Dani said, “It's okay. I'm Charlie's partner, Dani Reese.”  
“Oh. Okay. Is he there? Is it safe for me to come home yet?”  
“Yes, he's here, but he's driving right now, and yes, it's safe for you to come home.”  
“Good.”  
Charlie yelled, “Let us know when your flight will be in.”  
Dani asked, “Did you hear that?”  
Rachel said, “Yeah, I did. I'll text Uncle Charlie when I've booked a flight home.”  
By the time the conversation was over, Charlie and Dani had pulled into his driveway. “So, Charlie?” Dani started, “Is Rachel going to live here, too?”  
“That's okay, isn't it?”  
“Yeah. . . it's your house, and she called you Uncle Charlie on the phone.”  
“She was 9 when I went to prison. She'd called me Uncle Charlie for years by then.” Charlie paused and considered what Dani had just said. “Wait. Are you saying you're gonna move in?”  
Dani hemmed and hawed and stammered before she finally spit out, “Yes. I want to move in with you. I'm addicted to you and I want to be where you are every minute of the day.”  
Charlie leaned over and captured Dani's lips with his own. It was a good thing they were parked. The kiss went on for quite a while and their dress uniforms were starting to become unbuttoned and untucked, when there was a knock on the window. Dani and Charlie both reached for weapons they didn't have, then looked up to see Ted.  
“Ted!” Charlie yelled as he opened the door, “You're back! How did things go in Spain?”  
“Uh, well, things went pretty good. Olivia came back with me.”  
“Where is she?” Charlie wanted to know.  
“She's gone to your dad's place to get the rest of her things. She's decided that she needs to have her own place for a while.”  
“Can't blame her for that,” Charlie said.  
Dani looked confused for a minute, but decided to wait until they were alone to ask the questions that had popped up in the last thirty seconds. She opened her door and climbed out, then started to grab her bag of clothes that weren't dress uniform out of the back, but Charlie beat her to it.  
“Crews!” she said in irritation. “I can get it myself.”  
Charlie looked at her and said, “I know that, and I respect that you can do it yourself, but you don't always have to. I'm honoring you as a woman should be honored when you let me carry your bags.”  
Dani quirked her mouth again at him, but decided this wasn't a battle she wanted to fight right now. There were stories to hear from Ted, and Ted needed to hear their stories from the last weeks, and she was hungry. She'd never felt as hungry as she had this week. She had even remarked on it to Charlie, “I feel hungry all the time. Do you think it's a reaction to losing Dad?”  
“I've heard of that reaction to death before, yes. I think it's an affirmation that you're alive,” Charlie had answered. Charlie didn't mention any other reason Dani might be hungry all the time. He decided that any mention of any other reason to be hungry all the time was off the table, if he wanted to live.  
It wasn't too long before Dani and Charlie were out of their dress uniforms and into comfortable clothes, and sitting around the kitchen table with Ted. Olivia came over to get to know Charlie and Dani. They spent hours sitting around the table, talking about,“shoes, and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings.”  
The next day, Olivia returned and hunted through Charlie's kitchen looking for something to cook. Olivia loved to cook, and what with her recent jaunt in Europe, she hadn't had the chance to cook in weeks. In frustration, she finally said, “Charlie, what do you live on?? There isn't even sugar in this kitchen!”  
“Oh, we eat a lot of take-out,” Charlie admitted.  
Olivia's mouth quirked and she found pen and paper and started making a list of dinner ingredients.  
“Whaaaaat are ya doin'?” Charlie asked.  
“I'm going to cook dinner, but before I can cook, this kitchen needs food in it,” Olivia stated.  
Everybody else in the kitchen looked a little stunned. “Wait,” said Ted, “We just got back from Spain and now you want to cook?”  
Olivia sort of rolled her eyes and said, “Yes. It's been entirely too long since I've been able to cook – and this kitchen is fabulous! But you don't have even salt and pepper in the pantry!” she directed at Ted and Charlie both. The men couldn't do anything but nod their heads.  
As an aside, Dani leaned over to Charlie's ear and said, “She wouldn't like my kitchen much better.” Charlie nodded in agreement. Dani was not one who knew much about the kitchen, and she really didn't have much interest in learning, either.  
“Well, I'll go with you, to, uh, help carry the bags,” Ted said.  
Charlie handed Ted a credit card to use, seeing as they were outfitting his kitchen with food. “Thank you, Olivia,” Charlie said. “We've been in the house, what? Over two years? And we still don't have much in the kitchen. When Rachel gets home, I'm sure she'll appreciate it, too.”  
Ted said, “Oh? Rachel's coming home?”  
“Yeah, she called yesterday and said she was coming home.”  
“Good,” said Ted. “The house has been really empty without her.”  
Ted and Olivia took Charlie's Hummer (the better for carrying all the groceries Olivia was going to buy), and left Charlie and Dani alone in the house.  
Dani considered Charlie and all the things that had happened since he'd rescued her from Nevikov. “Did I ever say, 'thank you'?” she asked as she laced her fingers through his and tugged him closer.  
“For what?” Charlie responded as he took her other hand and did the same.  
“For coming after me and saving me from that Russian.” She was standing between his legs as he sat on one of the kitchen stools.  
“Dani, I'd do anything for you. No thanks are needed.” He pulled her in closer to himself.  
“Yeah, but I feel the need to say it.” She dropped one hand and ran her fingers through his hair.  
“Oh, honey, you do. Every time I get to kiss you, hug you, laugh with you, I am thanked for getting you out of that SUV.”  
She leaned in even closer and caught his mouth in a heated kiss that contained all the things she wanted to say, but couldn't find the words to use. Charlie wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up. Her head was slightly above his, which made it easier for her to kiss him, and gave her an odd feeling of control.  
She hadn't been in control of much since her dad's body had been found, but she was in charge of her relationship with Charlie Crews. Sort of. He was in charge of his relationship with Dani Reese, too. Sort of. It seemed as crazy as it read, but it worked. They were equals. Sometimes she let him drive, sometimes he let her choose the fruit. Charlie decided to be very Zen about their relationship and not try to move it to the level that would include diamond rings and white lace until she was ready.  
The relationship thing was hard for Dani, and he knew that. He'd read her file (turn about being fair play again; he knew she'd read his), and knew that her first true love was a junkie who had OD'ed. He knew she had had a whole bunch of one night stands before Tidwell. Well, he'd had his share since his release from Pelican Bay. Twelve years in prison does terrible things to the libido. Once it was allowed out to play, there wasn't any stopping it for much longer than he wanted to admit.  
Then Charlie had to admit his fixation on Jen when he'd first come out of prison. Their one night stand at their old hotel seemed to have given Charlie closure. He didn't feel the need to pursue Jen any more. He had hopes that if their lives had gone the way they should have, he and Jen would have stayed together forever. They would never know now whether they could have gone the distance or not.  
Now, Charlie was ready to concentrate on only one woman, and that one woman was Dani Reese. Dani was scared to death, even more so now than she had been before. Could she be faithful to Charlie? She thought she could. She knew he could be faithful to her, that's the way he was wired. Both of them spent a lot of time in their own heads while Ted and Olivia were gone.  
It took Ted and Olivia quite a while to get home with many bags of groceries. Not only had Olivia gone for staples like sugar and flour, but had bought steak, which would make for a quick dinner while she unloaded all the groceries and put them in the most logical places.  
They made sort of an assembly line out of it. Well, Ted and Olivia did. Charlie and Dani just stayed out of the way. Ted pulled flour out of a bag, called, “Flour!” and Olivia moved to where she thought flour ought to go. In the case of the flour, Ted handed it to her, but many other times, he tossed it to her. They did this with the sugar, eggs, cheese, milk, ice cream, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pepper (shakers, too!) spices, herbs, brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, name it, that kitchen needed it. Olivia bought and put into the freezer quite a few frozen foods that could turn into a quick dinner for whomever was in the house. Olivia had also bagged a copy of The Joy of Cooking, which was her favorite cookbook, and it might come in handy for anyone else trying to cook in that kitchen. She didn't know who would find it very interesting, but someone else might pick it up out of boredom and use it. Olivia came from a family who read cookbooks like other people read novels. That there were people who didn't understand how to work in the kitchen – and didn't really want to understand - bewildered her.  
Of course, Ted and Olivia had bought a whole bunch of fresh fruit, too. It couldn't be Charlie Crews' house without fresh fruit. She made a fruit salad after all the food was put away. Watching Olivia in charge of that kitchen was like watching a dynamo. “How in the world are you doing this?” Ted finally asked. “I can barely keep my eyes open and you're still going like a whirlwind!”  
Olivia said, “If I stop moving, I'll fall asleep, and I don't want to fall asleep yet. And look at what we've accomplished: there's food in the house that doesn't require a phone call or a trip!”  
Ted said, “You mean, look at what you've accomplished. I am very impressed.” Olivia just smiled at him.  
Dinner was ready about a half hour later, and dessert was ready not long after everyone was almost full of steak and salad. Clean-up was left to Ted, Charlie, and Dani, because the second Olivia sat down on the couch, she was fast asleep. The travel from Spain over the past few days had finally caught up with her. Ted lay her down, and stretched her legs out on the couch, so she wouldn't wake with a crick in her neck, and covered her with a throw blanket. They loaded the dishwasher, washed the skillet that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher, and saved the fruit salad for breakfast. The kitchen looked cozier, somehow, with the knowledge that there was food behind the cupboard doors and in the refrigerator. The Joy of Cooking lay on the counter, waiting for an acolyte in the ways of kitchen lore to explore it.  
As Charlie and Dani climbed the stairs toward their bed, Charlie said, “You know, I can't remember a time I've enjoyed dinner more.”  
Dani hummed in agreement, then said, “I hope that's not a hint that I need to learn to cook.”  
“No,” Charlie said, “but maybe I will. Olivia said that cookbook she bought is a good way to learn.”  
“Huh. I can be your lab rat, I guess.”  
“Only if you want to be, but since you're gonna be around so much. . .”  
Dani just smiled at him and shoved him through the bedroom door.


	4. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel Seybolt is home, and takes her place in Charlie's makeshift family.

The text alert on Charlie's phone woke him at 7:30 a.m. There was a text from Rachel that listed her arrival at LAX at 4:30 that afternoon. He texted back, “Can't wait to see you,” then rolled over to spoon Dani again. Dani muttered in her sleep and then rolled in Charlie's arms. They were now face to face, so Charlie took advantage and kissed Dani's forehead, then down her nose to her mouth.   
Dani cooperated for a minute, then slurred, half awake, “Why are we awake this early?”  
Charlie said, “Rachel's text. She'll be in at 4:30 today.”  
“That's not any time soon, is it?”  
“No, we have plenty of time.”  
“Good,” Dani said, and rolled back over and went back to sleep.   
Charlie could only laugh quietly, wrap his arms around her, and go back to sleep, too.

Leaving consideration that Rachel would have to go through Customs at the airport, and traffic, Charlie and Dani left at about 4:00 that afternoon. Dani drove, so Charlie could stand near the exit and watch for her, and Dani could circle the airport if necessary. Their timing was good. Rachel came through the doors almost immediately after Charlie hopped out of the Hummer to look for her.  
“Uncle Charlie!” she called and Charlie spotted her. She ran toward Charlie, who picked her up and hugged her like she was still little.   
“You're nice and tan,” Charlie remarked as he put her down and picked up her bag.   
Rachel shrugged and said, “There are lots of nice beaches almost everywhere.”  
“Well, come on,” he said, as he lead Rachel outside, “Dani will be around with the car in a minute.” It wasn't long before the big black Hummer appeared. “There's Dani now,” Charlie said.  
Rachel remarked, “That's not a car; it's a tank!”  
Dani said, “Yeah, but he hasn't wrecked it yet!” which made Rachel laugh.   
“We can't wait to hear all about your adventures,” Charlie said after they were all in the car. “Where did you go?”  
“Everywhere,” Rachel said. “First I went to England because it would be easiest to blend in there, 'cause I mostly spoke the language.” Charlie and Dani chuckled. “So, I went to the British Museum and the Globe Theatre, and lots of other touristy spots in London. But it was cold in London, and I didn't want to stay too long in one place, and I wanted to be sort of untraceable, so I went through Europe, and then to Australia and New Zealand. Mostly the same language, but it was warmer there.”  
“Which was your favorite?” Dani asked.  
“Ummm, I liked them all, but I think New Zealand was my favorite. The scenery was the best there.”   
Charlie turned from the front seat and looked at Rachel. He still saw the little girl she'd been when he went to prison. It was hard to meld the little girl Rachel of his memories with this confident young woman she'd become. “Do you forgive me for sending you out of the country?”  
Rachel said, “Yeah, I wouldn't have gone to all those countries otherwise, but you never did explain why I needed to go so fast.”  
Charlie and Dani exchanged a glance, which almost honked Rachel off, but Charlie decided that honesty was best now, so he said, “I was afraid that there was a threat to your life.”  
“And now the threat's been removed?”  
Charlie and Dani exchanged another look before Charlie said, “Yeah. There's no threat there any more.”  
“There's more to the story, isn't there?” Rachel asked.  
“Ummm, that's enough of the story for now,” Charlie said, letting his Zen show through a little. 

According to the stories she told, Rachel had taken advantage of having a passport and unlimited funds to draw upon. She hadn't just done whatever. She had acted more mature than her years and she had enjoyed all that Europe had to offer. While in London, she had toured Westminster Abbey and found herself on the street that ran in front of the Parliament building and behind Westminster. She had toured St. Paul's Cathedral and climbed up to the Whispering Gallery. She had toured the Coliseum in Rome and Versailles in France. Rachel had even climbed the hills in Athens to the Parthenon.   
Charlie was surprised – pleasantly so – that Rachel had not let the years she spent with Kyle Hollis keep her horizons so narrow that she couldn't take advantage of being in places that weren't America. Charlie had been a little afraid that she had been so innocent of the world that she wouldn't be able to handle being alone in a foreign country, or that she would be terrified by it. It turned out that there was more to Rachel than met the eye, and there appeared to be new depth to her now.  
They say travel widens your horizons, and Rachel's had certainly been widened. The injured little girl she had been was no where to be found in the confident girl who had returned. Even the terrified teenager she had been when Charlie found her bleeding all over Hollis's kitchen was gone. This girl was a force to reckon with now. And Charlie was glad to see it. He had been more scared than he would admit that he couldn't get her gone before Nevikov's goons found her. It may have been a close race, but Charlie had won it. 

When they returned to Charlie's house, Ted and Olivia were there, and Olivia had been cooking again. “Whatever it is you're cooking smells fabulous!” were the first words from Charlie's mouth.  
“Thanks,” Olivia said, “I thought Rachel might appreciate a home-cooked meal on the kitchen table.”  
Rachel grinned at this, remembering that she had been the reason Charlie had finally added some furniture to the house. “What is it you're cooking?” she asked Olivia.  
“I'm Olivia, by the way, and we're grilling burgers on the patio. I made pineapple upside down cake for dessert.”   
“Oh, yum! It's been too long since I had a good burger.”  
“You're in luck,” Olivia answered, “I thought American food might be just what you wanted.”  
“Want any help?” Dani asked.   
“Yeah, there's a big bowl of potato salad in the refrigerator, and watermelon that's already cut up. Shall we eat outside?”  
The consensus was that dinner should be eaten outside, to take advantage of the weather that wasn't too hot nor too cool.   
Rachel told her tales of travel around the world, barely in her twenties, and truly responsible for herself for the first time. She'd not had anything terrible happen to her (no muggings or worse), and all the travel had certainly broadened her horizons. She had also returned with a little more understanding for some of the things she'd been mad at Charlie about. She'd been immature and quick to judge him before she left on her travels. Now that she'd seen the world (or at least major parts of it), she realized that adult decisions are often much more complicated than they first appeared.

The five of them spent a very companionable evening sitting on the patio, listening to the waterfall in the pool, hearing the coyotes howl (which freaked Ted out again), and talking about anything and nothing. It was the ideal evening, in their opinion. When Rachel lay her head on the table and almost fell asleep, it seemed a good time to move the conversation inside. Since there were now five people who were going to spend a lot of time at the house, Dani said, “Charlie, the house needs furniture. I get why you want the open space, but comfortable seating would be a great idea, don't you think?”  
Charlie said, “Okay, okay, we'll get more furniture.”

 

The next morning, Dani thought she was the first one downstairs. She planned to start the coffee maker for anyone interested in caffeine. When she got downstairs, she discovered Rachel already up, sitting with a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, reading a book while she ate, and the coffee was already made.  
“Morning,” Dani said.   
Rachel nodded, swallowed, and said, “Morning.”   
“What are you reading?”  
“That cookbook Olivia bought. There's interesting stuff in here.”  
“Oh yeah?”  
Rachel nodded. “There's a whole section on how yeast works in bread.”   
“Huh. I may have to read it, myself.”   
Rachel nodded again and said, “I was thinking I'd like to try out some of the recipes in it.”  
Dani said, “Thanks to Olivia, there should be all the ingredients you need for a lot of those. Go for it. Maybe I can learn something, too.”

Rachel read the “Know Your Ingredients” chapter three times before she read the recipe. . . three times. Since it was her first attempt at baking, she gathered all her ingredients and pans, measured twice, wished Olivia was there to make sure she was doing it right four times, then screwed up her courage and plowed in. The cake she made was edible, and the frosting was even better. Rachel was extraordinarily pleased with herself and all the compliments she got on the cake at dinner that night. “Cooking is fun,” Rachel said.  
“Oh, yeah? What's so fun about it?” Charlie asked.  
“I don't know. . .” Rachel started. She pondered a minute and said, “I think it's taking all the ingredients, following some instructions, and making people happy.” She shrugged her shoulders and said, “Anyway, it's fun. I want to cook more when Olivia's here, to make sure I'm doing it right.”   
Over the next days, Rachel and Olivia spent a lot of time in the kitchen together. Dani sometimes bopped in and out, sort of like she was scoping out the scene, to see if she wanted to try this cooking thing, too. The guys, despite Charlie saying maybe he should learn, were quite happy to consume anything that came from Rachel and Olivia in the kitchen.  
Rachel's next attempt at baking was a failure. Somehow, the cookies just didn't look right. “What did I do wrong??” she moaned to Olivia.  
“Well, let's look and see,” Olivia said in a reassuring tone. Olivia examined the cookies and they looked. . . lacy. “Did you measure the flour correctly?” Olivia asked. She looked at the recipe and said, “It calls for 2 cups of flour. Is that what you put in?”  
Realization dawned on Rachel's face and she said, “Oh, no! I think I only put one!”   
Olivia reassured her, “That's all right. There's never been a cook who didn't make some sort of mistake in the kitchen. And these might still be edible as is.” Olivia had no more than said the words than Ted and Charlie came through the kitchen, saw the cookies on the counter, and snatched one each.   
“These are pretty good!” Charlie said.   
“Yeah, they are,” Ted agreed.  
Rachel replied, “They're my first failure in the kitchen,” in the dramatic tones of a young adult.  
“Failure how?'” asked the guys.  
“I didn't put all the flour in,” Rachel admitted.  
Charlie shrugged and said, “Well, for a failure, they're still pretty good.” Rachel looked a little reassured by Charlie's words. 

The next development in the kitchen was that Rachel spent hours watching food shows and YouTube videos. Somehow, she stumbled on one of Julia Child's early episodes of The French Chef and Rachel fell in love. She ordered Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 and 2, in hardback. When they arrived, Olivia looked just a little jealous, and showed Rachel the best recipes to start with. Rachel spent hours pouring over those cookbooks. Her first recipe was crepes. Some of them were thick, but they still rolled and folded into tiny containers for fruit spread and whipped cream.   
Not long after her foray into crepes, Rachel read the recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies out loud, then asked all and sundry around, “Does that sound good?” Those present didn't quite know how to respond, but Ted said, “Anything that has chocolate and raisins in it has to be good.” Rachel stopped for a minute and considered what Olivia had told her about herself and her mom and Rachel came to a stunning realization: She had become one of those people who read cookbooks like novels.

When the weather finally was cool enough, Rachel tackled soup and bread. Some of the soups she tried came from The Joy of Cooking and some from Mastering the Art... Her favorite (and everyone else's) was onion soup. She discovered that crusty French bread with onion soup that's been covered in cheese made a marvelous dinner. After her first batch of onion soup, Charlie said, “Rachel, I think you've found your gift.” Rachel thought about that for days.   
After Rachel had put a lot of thought into it she went to Charlie and said, “Uncle Charlie?”  
“Yeah, Rachel?” Charlie said after he pulled himself back to the moment.  
“I've been thinking about what you said.”  
“What I said? What did I say?” Charlie sounded confused and maybe a little worried. What had he said?  
“About my gift maybe being cooking?”  
Relief passed over Charlie's face. “Yeah, I remember now.”  
“Well, what if I wanted to go to some kind of school to learn to cook properly?”  
“You're already doing a really good job with what you've learned just here, but I would happily make that kind of dream come true.”  
Rachel smiled shyly and said, “Thanks, Uncle Charlie.”  
As soon as Rachel wandered back into the kitchen, intent on making something new, Charlie turned to Dani and said, “How can I find a really good cooking school in LA?”  
Dani said in a teasing way, “LA? What about the Cordon Bleu in Paris?”  
Charlie gave Dani a dark look and said, “I'd like her to stay somewhat near. I'm just getting to really know her. There has to be a good cooking school in LA. The city's too big to not have one.”  
Dani nodded in agreement and said, “That's why humans invented Google.” It took Dani about two minutes to find a list of cooking schools in LA. She was pretty sure that Rachel had already done this herself, but Dani did it anyway.

Not too many days after Charlie had agreed to buy more furniture for the house, a delivery truck pulled into the drive. On it was the new furniture that Charlie had picked out from the pictures Dani liked. When it was all arranged to everyone's liking, there was still plenty of open space for Charlie, but it was comfortable and welcoming, and didn't echo like a canyon. Ted then decided that there needed to be more books on the empty shelves. When he mentioned this to everyone else, they all agreed. Rachel, then, took to hunting library sales, used book stores, and other haunts for books with history and character, and the shelves were soon comfortably full, without being stuffed. More cookbooks started appearing on the kitchen shelves, too. There were suddenly plenty of days when Olivia and Rachel could be found, their noses in cookbooks, occasionally asking, “Does this sound good?” to each other as they perused recipes.   
One evening while they were all sitting around the dinner table (one of the new arrivals in the house), eating dinner Rachel had cooked by herself, Charlie asked, “Rachel, do you still want to go to cooking school/chef's school/whatever they call it?”  
Rachel said, “Yeah,” in a way that meant she'd love nothing more in the world, but she really didn't want to ask Charlie for the money to go.  
Charlie said, “Good. You have a spot reserved at the New School of Cooking in Culver City. Twenty weeks from next Tuesday, you'll be a certified cook. Chef.” He paused a second, looked confused, then said, “You'll be certified to charge people for the food you cook.”   
Rachel, in a show of affection that was very rare for her, leaned over and kissed Charlie on the cheek. “Thank you, Uncle Charlie.” Everyone else didn't say a word about the grateful blush on Rachel's cheeks.


	5. Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun writing this story. It's one of the many, many ways that the show could have continued. 
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed reading it.

“You know, we're going to have to decide eventually,” Charlie said.  
“Decide what?” asked Dani.  
“Are we partners or lovers? 'Cause LAPD won't let us be both,” he responded. “We're going to have to decide if we're going back, too.”  
Dani pondered for quite a while. “Yeah, I've been thinking about that, myself. My mourning leave is almost up.”  
“I don't need to go back,” Charlie said in a pensive way. “I think I've proven what I needed to: I'm a good cop. I was innocent.”  
“Maybe I don't want to go back,” pondered Dani. “Sometimes I think I only became a cop to prove to my dad that I could.”  
“Well, if you weren't a cop, what would you want to do?”  
Dani looked out the patio door at the wild canyon around Charlie's house and said, “I really don't know. I never considered being anything else when I was a kid.”  
“You know, you don't have to be anything for a while, if you'd like.” He joined her by the patio door and wrapped his arms around her. “We could spend every day doing whatever we want, living off the interest of my settlement, letting Ted invest it and make even more money.”  
“I've always wondered about that,” Dani said, changing the subject. The conversation was getting a little deep.  
“Wondered about what?”  
“Why you let Ted handle your money.” She turned to look at him while she said it.  
Charlie's eyebrows went up as he considered. “Well, he's good at it. He was good at it before he got greedy and started lying and stealing money from people.”  
“You're not worried he's going to steal your money?”  
“Naw. For one thing, he owes me for saving his life in prison. For another thing, he knows how I survived prison. He doesn't want to anger me. Not that he would. I trust him.”  
Dani had to nod in agreement with this. She hadn't considered everything Ted must know about Charlie's time in prison. The idea that she could find out some more details about Charlie's time then from Ted briefly crossed her mind, but it didn't stay long. The past didn't matter. What mattered was now, and where they were headed in the future.  
While they were standing at the patio door in companionable silence, Rachel breezed in, fresh from her Tuesday class at cooking school. To say she was thriving at the New School of Cooking was putting it mildly. She loved it. Even the burns she got and the time she sliced a finger open while she was chopping an onion didn't bother her much.  
Today she practically danced in, still wearing her white chef's coat, carrying something Charlie thought smelled absolutely marvelous. Dani caught a whiff of it and suddenly broke from Charlie's arms and ran for the bathroom.  
Rachel and Charlie stood looking at each other in confusion, then heard Dani retching in the bathroom.  
Charlie followed to the bathroom door. “Dani! Are you okay?” She didn't answer fast enough to suit Charlie. “Reese! Are you alive??”  
Rachel hadn't seen this side of Charlie before. She thought it was sort of cute, but it probably felt a little suffocating to Dani.  
Dani opened the door and confirmed what Rachel thought. “I'm fine, Crews,” she said, sounding irritated. “The smell of whatever Rachel brought in just hit me wrong.”  
Charlie gave Rachel a look and Rachel made the foil package disappear in the refrigerator. He didn't say anything about certain odors apparently having a bad effect on her stomach. Yet.  
When the same thing happened two days later, Charlie took matters into his own hands: He made a run to the nearest drug store for a pregnancy test.  
The idea of being a dad made his breath come short with hopefulness. The idea that he, Charlie Crews, could be a dad in a few months, after all the years he'd spent seeing the worst sides of humanity and death inside prison walls, seemed too good to be true. Now to convince Dani to take the thing.  
It was just about as hard as he'd thought it would be. They had the argument in their bedroom.  
“Crews, I'm not pregnant!” she hissed at him, when he pulled the box out of its sack.  
“Okay, prove it. Take the test.”  
“I don't need to! I'm not pregnant!” she hissed back.  
“Oh, really? So the fact that everything Rachel's brought home from school this week has made you run for the bathroom to throw up doesn't mean anything?”  
Dani scowled at him.  
“And you fell asleep at seven o'clock last night, honey. You didn't even notice when I carried you upstairs.”  
The scowl deepened.  
“Would having a baby be a bad thing?” he cajoled. “'Cause I'm thinking that a little girl with your big brown eyes would be a good thing.”  
Dani quirked her mouth, shot him a dirty look, then took the pregnancy test into the bathroom.  
Charlie was sure she was just being stubborn about admitting that she hadn't been in control of having a baby, but that she'd come around. . . as soon as she stopped feeling sick all the time.  
A few minutes after she went into the bathroom, she opened the door and yelled, “CREWS!”  
“What?” he asked. She showed him the test, and his face split into a wide grin when he saw it was positive.  
“How did this happen?” she grumbled.  
“Well, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much -” he started, but she swatted him with the back of her hand in the stomach, “oof!” he said.  
“Seriously, Charlie, what are we gonna do?”  
Charlie looked at her and gently said, “I hope we're gonna have a baby.”  
“You really want this, don't you?”  
“Yeah,” he said, all the hope very evident in his voice.  
Dani sighed a very deep sigh. “Okay. I suppose I need to find a doctor.”  
“There's one other thing we could do before we find a doctor or tell anybody. . .”  
“What?” she asked, wondering what other shock could be thrown at her right now, and he knelt down in front of her.  
“Dani Reese, will you marry me?”  
“Because of the baby??”  
“No, not because of the baby. Because I love you with every fiber of my being and I want you in my life, every day of my life, for as long as I get to live.”  
The look on his face was so open, honest, and earnest, that Dani could only say, “Okay.”  
“Yes??”  
“Yes.” she answered.  
“If I pick you up and hug you right now, will you hit me again?”  
“If you swing me around, I'm liable to throw up on you.”  
“No swinging around,” he promised, as he moved in to hug her close.  
The hormones had started their pendulum swing, Dani decided. She was suddenly in tears. Dani Reese, who hadn't cried since her dad's funeral – and hadn't cried in years before then – was crying.  
“Why are you crying?” Charlie asked.  
“I don't know,” Dani almost whined.  
“Are you happy?” he asked.  
“Not yet,” she said. “I gotta get used to the idea of a husband and baby. Gimme a minute.”  
Charlie decided that silence was the best response to this. He could go on and on about how happy he was, but that wasn't what Dani needed. She needed to process this in silence.  
It took a few minutes, but the hormone pendulum suddenly swung back the other way. Dani lifted her head from Charlie's now tear-stained shirt and said in a voice of awe, “Charlie, we're gonna have a baby.”  
Charlie nodded and said, “I know. Isn't it great?”  
Dani quirked her eyebrow up and said, “At the moment, it's a little terrifying. Getting married sounds a little terrifying.”  
“We don't have to get married, if you don't want to, as long as we're together.”  
“No, I want to marry you. And it will make the idea of a baby go over better with my mom. She's a bit traditional.”  
Dani looked down and out the window behind Charlie and said, “Come to think of it, Mom's gonna be ridiculous over a baby.”  
“She'll have somebody new to spoil,” Charlie agreed.  
Dani groaned. 

Dani didn't want to tell anyone anything before the next morning. Even then, she wanted to tell her mother first, and in person. Then they could tell the rest of their make-shift family and deal with the LAPD. Dani knew that since she was pregnant, she'd probably be put on desk duty until after the baby was born. She hated that idea. Maybe taking a leave of absence until she could go back on the streets was an idea. Thoughts about taking a leave of absence and how ridiculous her mom was going to be filled her head as they drove to her mom's house.  
“Mom?” she called as they walked in. She could smell something cooking and it was making her stomach roil.  
“In the kitchen!” her mother called back.  
Charlie and Dani walked into the kitchen. “That smells great!” Charlie said.  
Dani groaned.  
“What's wrong?” Nadia pounced on Dani. It was one of Dani's favorite dishes that was bubbling on the stove. The smell of Middle Eastern food turning Dani's stomach set off Nadia's Mom Radar immediately.  
Dani sank down into one of the kitchen chairs and held her head in her hands.  
“Dani?” Nadia asked again, “What's wrong?”  
Charlie decided discretion was the better part of valor this time, and Dani needed to break this to her mother herself.  
She took a deep breath and said, “Nothing's really wrong, Mom. I'm just pregnant.”  
Nadia looked completely nonplussed. “What?” she asked in a shocked and rather excited tone.  
“I'm pregnant, Mom. You're gonna be a grandma.”  
As Dani had expected, Nadia was just a little excited. “Oh! Dani! Finally! I never thought this would ever happen! My baby's having a baby!”  
While Nadia hugged her, Dani shot Charlie a dirty look over her mother's shoulder. Charlie's shoulders shook in silent laughter.  
“But you're not married!” was the next thing Nadia said as she leaned back from hugging Dani.  
“Well, we plan to fix that soon,” Charlie said. “Dani's agreed to be my wife.” Nadia jumped up and hugged Charlie when she heard this.  
“When??” she wanted to know. “When are you going to marry??”  
“Uh...” Charlie said, “as soon as I can talk Dani into setting a date or running away to Las Vegas with me, whichever she'll do.”  
Nadia looked at Dani and said, “You know, I've always liked this Charlie. He listens to you. He respects you – much more than your father ever respected you. Or me.”  
“Yeah, I know, Mom,” Dani responded. “I think I got one of the good guys,” she said while she looked at Charlie and smiled.  
“Sooooo??” asked Nadia.  
“Whaaaat?? asked Dani.  
“When will you marry this good guy? This Charlie?”  
“This is going to bug you 'til he's put a ring on my finger, isn't it?” Dani teased her mother.  
Nadia just raised an eyebrow, in a look that Charlie had seen on Dani's face many times.  
“Okay, okay, how about next week in Las Vegas?” Dani suggested.  
“Next week?” Charlie interjected. “We can fly there right now if you want.”  
“Crews,” Dani said in a terse tone. “I'm still getting used to this idea. Gimme a week.”  
“Okay,” Charlie and Nadia said together. Charlie continued, “We can take your mom and our friends. Rachel or Olivia can be bridesmaid – or both, if you want. Or somebody else if you want. Ted can be best man. . . maybe Bobby could come, too.”  
Dani's eyebrow went up at the idea of Bobby Stark at her wedding.  
“Hey, he did help me find you.”  
Dani's face relaxed and she relented. “Okay, who do we tell next?”  
“Uh. . . how about our friends?” Charlie answered.  
“I'm the first to know?” Nadia asked.  
“Of course,” said Dani. “I couldn't tell anybody else before I told you.”  
The rest of their visit consisted of making plans for the wedding next week. Dani was sure Charlie had half the planning done on his phone before they ate dinner. After dinner, which seemed to sit on Dani's stomach all right, Nadia wanted to talk about the impending grandbaby. 

When they finally got home, Charlie walked through the door and called, “Anybody home??”  
Rachel appeared from the kitchen and said, “I'm cooking something not smelly!”  
Dani had to laugh, but the scents from the kitchen weren't making her stomach turn.  
“Where is everybody?” Charlie asked.  
“Ummm. I haven't seen Ted and Olivia,” Rachel said, “and I've been home for at least an hour.”  
“Well, I guess they'll hear the news when they appear,” Charlie said.  
“What news?”  
“Dani and I are getting married.”  
“REALLY?!?!?” Rachel's voice shot up at least two octaves. She jumped up and hugged Charlie, then Dani and bounced around like a little girl.  
“Oh, there's more,” Charlie continued.  
Rachel looked at him confused. “I'm pregnant,” Dani announced.  
Rachel looked amazed at this announcement, then asked, “So, which one is gonna happen first?”  
Dani rather tiredly said, “We're getting married in Vegas next week. Will you come and be bridesmaid?”  
Rachel looked stunned and then said, “Yes! I'd love to!”  
Ted and Olivia walked in not long after and reacted much as Rachel had to the news. Ted was very humbled to be asked to be best man.  
After a whirlwind rush through a bridal boutique, they found Dani the perfect dress – which was not easy, considering how she really felt about dresses. It was cream colored, with a sweetheart neckline, cap sleeves, and an A-line skirt. It was also loose enough that it ought to still fit over the baby bump that was just becoming visible.  
Dani didn't care much what color of dress Rachel wore, as long as it was something that Rachel liked and looked good on her. They found one in a shade of blue that made Rachel's eyes stand out. It was cut along the same lines as Dani's and fit Rachel like a glove.  
Charlie and Ted were going to wear suits. Dani left that completely up to them. She didn't care what they wore, as long as they were clothed and there. Now that she'd gotten used to the idea, she was going to be very disappointed if their wedding didn't happen.  
One thing Charlie did by himself was to find Dani's ring. He knew she'd be happy with a plain gold band, but he wanted something more for her. He wanted something that would show the world what she meant to him – if there could ever be a ring opulent enough for that.  
Dani decided that buying Charlie's ring ought to be something she did herself. She found the perfect ring for him: elegant and understated, but not too plain.  
The party that finally went to Las Vegas the following Thursday was Charlie and Dani, of course; Dani's mom; Ted and Olivia; and Rachel. It was a small party that flew into Vegas on the private jet Charlie chartered, but it was a party full of love. . . until flying made Dani sick to her stomach. Pregnancy hormones and air travel are not a good combination.  
Once they got to Vegas, neither Dani nor Charlie had any idea which chapel they wanted to marry in. The first one they found looked good, so that's where they went. Wedding ceremonies are almost all alike. Charlie suggested the idea of writing their own vows, but Dani said, “Charlie, what we say doesn't matter. What matters is that we intend to be married.”  
So, they got married with the traditional vows. It doesn't take long for two people to join their lives together, intending to be together for the rest of their lives, only ten minutes or so. Odd, isn't it? A ceremony that does so much takes so little time.  
Dani was stunned when she saw the ring Charlie had bought. It was perfect for her: understated, unobtrusive, and tough: it was titanium. Charlie's ring was perfect for him: a gold band with just a few stones set in it – sapphires to match his eyes. Charlie loved it from his first sight of it.  
The after-ceremony party was just as small as the ceremony had been: just the wedding party in a private room at the Four Seasons. Charlie and Dani retired soon to the Bridal Suite – Dani fell asleep almost immediately – while everyone else had a good time taking in one of the shows on the Strip, then retired to their own rooms in the hotel.  
The day after the wedding, everyone returned home and Dani and Charlie really started thinking about whether they wanted to return to LAPD or not. Seeing as Dani was pregnant, she was going to be on desk duty until after the baby was born, so that played into whether to go back or not.  
The ideas that Dani didn't have anything else to prove – nor did Charlie – kept running through their brains. Neither of them needed to go back to LAPD, so did they want to or not? Time was running out for them to decide. The impending baby was a wrinkle in the plans.  
A week after their return from Vegas, Dani decided that a visit to Tidwell's office was necessary. She'd made her decision. Now, to tell LAPD and Tidwell.  
She knocked on Tidwell's door frame, and he looked up in surprise, “Da – Reese! Ready to come back to work?”  
Dani got a funny look on her face, walked into his office, closed the door, and sat down. “Well, I've run into a complication.” She paused a beat and continued, “I'm pregnant.”  
Tidwell was completely nonplussed.  
Dani decided to clarify, “It isn't yours. It's Crews'. We got married last week in Vegas.”  
“Well, you know that means you can't be partners when you come back.”  
“Yeah, about that. I don't think I'm coming back.”  
“WHAT?? You can't do that to me! You're one of my best detectives! Our clearance rate's been in the tank!”  
“Well, no one's irreplaceable. It sounds like Seever's done a great job at my desk.”  
“What about Crews? Is he on a permanent vacation, too?”  
Dani shot him a dirty look and said, “That's up to him. What's right for me right now is to not be a cop. I'm going to be a mom in a few months, which means you'd put me on desk duty soon anyway; I puke three or four times a day, which is so not something I want to do here; and I married Charlie Crews: it's not like I need to work for the money. I proved what I needed to when I became a cop. I don't need to prove anything anymore.”  
After the paperwork was done and Dani had reluctantly turned in her shield and gun, she left LAPD for the last time. There was a little sadness mixed into this final good-by, but not as much as she'd expected.  
Kevin Tidwell was still reeling from the shock of Dani Reese-Crews resigning from the LAPD than Charlie Crews came through his door.  
“Don't tell me,” Tidwell started in a morose tone. “You're gonna resign, too.”  
Charlie looked confused.  
“Your wife,” Tidwell stressed, “was just in here to drop all kinds of bombs on me, including your wedding and expected baby,” Tidwell looked disgusted at the idea, “then she quit.”  
“Oh,” said Charlie. “She hadn't told me what she'd decided.” He shook his head to clear it, then said, “No. Actually, I came in to tell you that I'm ready to come back to work. Dani's proven to herself everything she needs to, as a cop. I haven't. And I want Seever as my partner. She's solid.”  
Tidwell said, “Okay.”  
After Crews teamed up with Seever again, the clearance rate recovered and everyone was happy. Well, no, Tidwell wasn't so happy with the way Dani had dumped him and moved on so fast, but he got over it. Dani had been right to break it off with him quickly and cleanly. His heart healed and he found wife #4 just a few months later. 

He was born 7 months later, with eyes that turned green, dark brown hair with red highlights, and skin tone that was darker than Charlie's, but lighter than Dani's. In short, Adam Michael Crews was a true combination of both his parents. Dani never did go back to LAPD; she was too wrapped up in being Adam's mom. And then when he was 2, along came Sarah Danielle Crews, who was a carbon copy of her mother, just as her daddy wished. About that time, Charlie's accumulated wealth was so great, Ted had a hard time keeping up with it, so Charlie “retired” from LAPD to set up foundations and trusts that would take care of his kids – now numbering 3 (David Robert Crews having joined them when Sarah wasn't quite 2). Charlie and Dani's happiest times were then: when their kids were small and they were completely in charge of their own lives, answering only to themselves. And Rachel finally convinced Dani to learn to cook.


End file.
